


saw you in my dreams

by jenomeow



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angels, Anxiety Attacks, Devils, Donghyuck is a 600yr old god, Gods, M/M, Mentions of Death, Mentions of kidnapping, Minor Character Death, Original Character(s), That's it, Vampires, War, Werewolves, also from super junior, and the villain wants to kill them sorry, if let's do it baby i know the law and go crazy had a baby it'd be the dreamies in this fic, members from svt and bts are mentioned, sorry for this messy tagging, that's the fic, the dreamies are rebels, the dreamies trying to save the world basically
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2020-05-14 12:06:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 32,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19272961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenomeow/pseuds/jenomeow
Summary: Mark has been dreaming about six boys. In this dreams the boys and him save a world full of magic from the injustices of its Emperor.He thinks he’s losing his mind, dreaming about people who don’t even exist, until he meets one of said boys, and then realizes that maybe all those dreams, rather than be dreams, are actually memories.





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, i'm doing this because I want to improve my english redaction skills, so if you notice a big mistake or whatever, please tell me! i'm here to learn. I guess it's clear that english is not my first language aidjlh.
> 
> Anyways! I hope you enjoy this thing I did some time ago. And speaking of that, when i planned this fanfic and started writing it, hendery, xiaojun and yangyang weren't introduced as nct members yet, so they aren't here for the first chapters, but i'm sure i'll find a way to squeeze them into the story as well, don't worry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ages:  
> when arrived to Neo:  
> °mark, jeno, renjun and jaemin → 16 (now 18)  
> °jisung and chenle → 15 (now 17)
> 
> apart from that, everything is almost the same (except for hyuck obviously), mark is the oldest and jisung the youngest.

He was told he was missing for two years. That the police stopped looking for him but his family didn’t. That everyone thought he was dead, except Taeyong. Even his mother thought so. Until one morning some college students who went out for a snack to a nearby 24-hour store found him lying in the street, beaten almost to death, bleeding and unconscious, almost frozen.

He woke up in a hospital room, connected to machines. His mother was crying in the corner of the room, his father was holding her, crying too. She was thinner and he had removed his mustache, notoriously with more gray hair. Both were emaciated. Taeyong was by his side, holding his hand, smiling shakily, muttering a soft "Hey, Mark." He was also much thinner, his hair less shiny, his eyes without the usual spark. Why were they all so different if he had seen them just that morning before going to school?

But that morning had been two years ago. Mark had completely forgotten two years of his life. The last thing he remembered was that he was walking after school to his home. On the same street as always. The sun was hidden among some clouds, the wind warm and clean. He had math homework, in which he wasn’t very good so he would ask Yukhei for help. He had stopped to buy an ice cream, like every Wednesday. He was crossing a park that was always a little lonely. Mark simply went home, and suddenly there was no more. He didn’t remember anything else, everything skipped to that moment in the hospital room.  
The official statement of the police was that Mark was kidnapped and later released when he wasn’t useful anymore, probably because who kidnapped him thought he was dead and decided to left him lying in the street for someone to get rid of the corpse. But Mark was alive, barely, but he was.

The psychiatrist said that Mark went through such horrific things that his mind suppressed those two years from the moment it all started, when he was kidnapped in the park, where he was last seen. Nothing in him was affected, nor his personality, his way of seeing the world, his interests, nothing, which is what normally happens after something as traumatic. At most what changed was his interpersonal relationships. That really changed, actually. From the outside it would seem that everything was fine, Mark talked to people and interacted as well as ever. Except that he didn’t want anyone close to him, neither his family or his friends. He distanced himself in such a subtle way that without anyone noticing, Mark suddenly had a wall around him. It wasn’t obvious; He was friendly and cheerful. The Mark of always. But he didn’t want Taeyong in his life, he didn’t want his friends or family in his personal life.

And the dreams? Nobody knew about dreams. He didn’t want to talk about it, it felt like something very intimate to even consider talking about it to someone.  
From time to time he had a strange feeling. Many, actually. But almost always it was that feeling of guilt for not being doing something that he should be doing. It was worry, anxiety, fear, it was the willing to help. Help whom? Why? He didn’t know, but he felt that he should help and was not doing it, so he felt guilty, useless. The psychiatrist said that maybe it was because they had other people kidnapped and, although Mark didn’t remember them, unconsciously he knew that these people existed and needed help. She told him that maybe he made a friend while he was captive and that's why the feeling was so strong, because of the bond he had with someone there.

Mark doubted it. He was sure that wasn’t it, but he simply nodded: it was easier to agree with the one who had a PhD in those things.


	2. wild

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wasn't scared because of the dreams; he was scared because he felt like he was getting crazy. Mark was scared because he didn’t know what was happening in his head and couldn’t bring himself to talk about it with others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be a little bit of Mark’s dreams, because well, that’s the Whole Point. I mean, it’s the plot of this fanfic so let’s go.
> 
> anddd, here I introduce some very important characters that are going to be an essential part of all this thing the dreamies are trying to do in the fic.
> 
> the way to identify chapters that are Mark's dreams and the chapters that aren't is to check the title of the chapter. If it's a dream i'll put some random song i was listening while i wrote; sometimes it's related with the chapter but mostly it isn't lol
> 
> TW/ there’s mentions of blood and descriptions of violence. Not that explicit bc I don’t really like to write violence and it’s not my forte either, but yeah.

What bothered Mark the most was the pity and the attacks that arose as a result of the kidnapping. The last ones were especially annoying; he knew that people felt sorry for what happened to him, but the attacks that came from nowhere? He didn’t understand them. He didn’t know why they happened, didn’t know what they meant or what caused them.

Halfway through a class, during dinner, at dawn, even in the shower. Attacks of anxiety, panic and night terrors. At less drastic times, he found himself crying disconsolately, shrinking in himself, terrified, muttering things without meaning under his breath. And the whole class saw him with pity. Not a single person in the school looked at him in any other way, with pure and sincere pity.  
And Mark felt ridiculous and humiliated, betrayed by himself and his mind that made him look like that but that never explained why.

Sometimes he thought he was crazy. And he was sure that at least 80% of the student population thought so too.

The number of times that people who he never in his life saw approached him to tell him that he had them for whatever he needed. The number of times he ended up running into Taeyong's arms, clinging to his brother's shirt, scared to death without knowing exactly what he feared. Taeyong was very patient with him, so kind, and never forced him to speak, as if he understood that this was what Mark needed, as if he understood what Mark had been through. He kissed his forehead and murmured how sorry he was, sincere and sad. Mark figured it must hurt to see your little brother go through all that. Without energy, he simply let Taeyong apologize for something that wasn’t his fault and tried to enjoy the stroking his brother gave to his hair.

It was pathetic, yes. But there really wasn’t much he could do until he remembered what he forgot and could go from there to start healing. The real problem was that these nightmares or whatever, that he had lately, didn’t make any sense. He didn’t know how to relate these dreams to what he had supposedly lived during the kidnapping. What did a strange world have to do with being deprived of freedom? And then there were all those people that Mark had never seen in his life but who were always there when he dreamed.

He only felt that each time his sanity was worse, and he didn’t dare to talk about it with anyone.

"Yong, can I sleep with you today?" he asked softly, sticking his head out the door of his brother's room. Taeyong looked over his book at Mark and nodded, with a light smile.  
He felt like a ridiculous little boy, but imagining waking up alone and in the dark in the middle of the night after a dream he didn’t understand made him push all that shame and get into bed next to his brother. The weariness of all these days when he didn’t sleep well ended up defeating him before Taeyong finished his reading of that night, and soon found himself sleeping.

 

\-------

We were ten years old. Babies, if we take into account that we can live so many years.

I don’t remember how, it was more than two thousand years ago, but from time to time we managed to escape from our respective castles for a few hours and travel to a small town far from our territories. Far from everything was a civilization, of course we, as the future Lords, had certain abilities; We were fast, not as fast as we are now, however, in one or two hours we reached our destination.

It was a beautiful place where there were never clouds in the sky, the houses were nice and with triangular roofs. People knew who we were, yet they didn’t report us to the Emperor or our parents. They let us play with the children of the village, they gave us food and drinks, they treated us as if we were mere children, and not monsters, as most humans see us.

We only played, as expected. We liked to play with the children of the town, but we liked to play even more among ourselves, because we didn’t have to measure our strength. We went to a very large ravine a few meters from the village and played for hours, until it was time for everyone to return home.

There was a lagoon in the ravine, which was perfect because Jungwoo, being very young, couldn’t control his temperature and needed to be constantly in contact with water, but if he got into a river that flowed into the sea, his father would feel his presence and go to look for him, and nobody wanted that, because it meant scolding, so a lagoon was perfect. Jungwoo went in and out of it throughout the afternoon, always under the watchful eye of Doyoung, who found it fascinating. Oh, you should see his reaction when Jungwoo was in his merman form with the shiny golden tail instead of legs. Now that I think about it, maybe little Doyoung had a crush on little Jungwoo. Sicheng had one in Jaehyun, and he had a crush in Sicheng, it was mutual.

Things started to go wrong when some of the Emperor's guards passed by and saw a bunch of children playing near the lagoon. It wouldn’t have been a problem if it weren’t because it was obvious that we all were of different races, and even more, the heirs of the clans.

It was a disaster. They began to beat us up. They took Jungwoo by force from the lagoon and ripped the bottom of his tail. Jungwoo complained, and they took a sword and made a cut along his tail, from his hip to the fin. We, clumsy and innocent as the children we were, didn’t know about cruelty or prejudice or anything, we didn’t know how to react, just watching Jungwoo cry with his injured tail, writhing on the ground. Except Sicheng, who almost killed the guards, if it hadn’t been because the Emperor arrived.

"Your friend deserves it, little one, you all deserve a punishment for not obeying the rules and hanging out with people from other clans," he told Sicheng.

"Who put that silly rule!? Elders who are already dead!? You can’t decide who we are talking to or not, just for being the Emperor! A true ruler would never be like you!" It was what Sicheng replied. It was the first time that someone rebelled against the Emperor aloud, and even more so, in his face.

Sicheng always had a strong sense of justice and desire to protect others, whether he knew them or not. His kind educated people that way, the motto of the angels is first the others then me. And Sicheng took it to heart, almost religiously. Having seen how his friends were beaten and mistreated by the Emperor, the same man who forbade interaction between races, Sicheng didn’t sit still.

But the Emperor didn’t shut up due to the lack of respect showed by Sicheng. "Do you want to see these children so much? Well, now you won’t be able to see anything else." He took a sword from his men and slid it across the top of Sicheng's face, cutting off his eyes. I don’t think I can ever forget the cry from Sicheng at that moment.

To make things worse, having cut his eyes with a poisoned sword, he took out a dark potion and poured it all over Cheng's face.

This type of potions is forbidden, because they are made of dark magic, the most terrible and destructive invention that the Sages created and that they banned themselves, but that the Emperor used to make potions.

The potion with which he covered Cheng's eyes was made from this magic, which means that even if they could reconstruct Sicheng's eyes, removing the horrendous cut they had, which of course it’s possible, he would never recover his sight, his eyes would never stop hurting until he almost lost consciousness, and the internal wound would last forever without ever closing, causing his eyes to bleed occasionally, enlarging the pain.

We were only ten-year-old children, we saw nothing wrong with wanting to be friends with the other heirs, we didn’t understand what was wrong with talking to people of other races for them to make us suffer like this.

They left Sicheng blind and with a wound that would never close, they hurt Jungwoo's tail, they rubbed oresses (a kind of poison ivy which kills gods) across Jaehyun's face, they cut Doyoung's palms with dragon tooth daggers, they pulled out feathers from Ten's wings and tore Kun's, and almost drowned me in the lagoon.

I thought they would kill us. I could smell the fire that burned the village to its foundations, we all listened the people who so kindly welcomed us to die burned.

Then the Sages arrived, and until then the guards left us alone. I was terrified, clinging tightly to Siwon's shirt, wanting to be taken home but wanting to see if my friends were okay. I calmed down a little when I saw the others being checked by their Sages: Heechul was rubbing some mermaid remedy on Jungwoo's tail, smiling at him fondly, Ryeowook inspecting Kun's wings, Leeteuk bandaging Doyoung's hands, Hyukjae had Ten in his arms, who refused to let go, Yesung carefully caressed Jaehyun's hair, soothing him, and Donghae knelt in front of Sicheng, who didn’t stop sobbing, covering his eyes with his hands, which were soaked with blood. It’s a scene that I keep remembering with clarity: Donghae tried to calm Sicheng down, but he didn’t stop crying, squirts and spurts of blood running between his fingers and down his cheeks until they fell to the ground and splashed his tunic and Donghae's, so white that the bloodstains stood out even more.

"You used the forbidden techniques," Yesung said, coldly, "and you used them against a child to make him blind for life, a very long life. Is not only morally wrong, you disobeyed a law that the Sages imposed so that this kind of thing wouldn’t happen, you are the Emperor, and you are supposed to be in charge of Neo’s peace, and yet you almost killed the heirs in a violent way."

"They know that the species shouldn’t be mixed" was how the Emperor defended himself.

"Is that a reason to do what you did?"

"Oh, come on, you Sages never get involved in anything, you only give advice, you don’t even leave your temples, but suddenly I hurt some children a little and all of you come here to pick them up and heal their wounds."

"You should not, for any reason, disrespect these children, Hyun," Hyukjae murmured, serious.

"I'm going to seal the dark magic," Yesung resolved, "Anyone who wishes to use the forbidden techniques to evil will be unable to fulfill their objective, dark magic can only be used for simple tasks, I will seal its power so much that no one uses it in a bad way ever again."

And so he did. He sealed the majority of the dark magic. Each Sage took his future Lord and they left for their kingdom. Some of us were locked in our castles, like Kun and I, and others were locked in their territory, like Jungwoo who couldn’t leave the sea, and Jaehyun, who even before the incident shouldn’t leave the Mountain of the Gods. That was the last time we saw each other, more than two thousand years ago.

The dreamies finished listening to the story of Jungkook, the Lord of the werewolves, with expressions of sadness.

“Lord, why don’t you visit your old friends?” Chenle asked, the same question they asked all the Lords since they learned they used to be friends. “Your parents are no longer forbidding you what to do, and even if they were, which is the case for some of the Lords, now you are the ones who rule.”

Jungkook smiled.

“I wish it was so easy,” He sighed “The Emperor closely watches our territories, if he saw us getting too close to another land that isn’t ours, the consequences would fall on humans in neutral land. We can’t risk hurting humans because of our desire to see each other again.”

“But if the opportunity were given, would you want to see them?”

“Of course.”

They didn’t need him to say more, that was exactly what they wanted to hear.

\----

And then Mark woke up. It wasn’t even a really bad dream, all the time the only thing the Mark from his dream did was sit there to listen to that man, with the boys of always around him in some creepy and dark room or something. And yet, there he was, struggling to breath, Taeyong sitting beside him, remembering him how the fuck to breath because apparently Mark forgot how to do that every time he had one of those dreams. He had been waking up and then the real nightmare started: at that point he didn’t know if it was panic or anxiety or even plain fear, but god, it was exhausting and triggered by the weird dreams. They didn’t need to be scary or bloody; whatever it was, it’d lead to Mark having a hard time. His theory was that it wasn’t the fact that the dreams were frightening or not, what caused all that was the fact that Mark didn’t know what was happening: he couldn’t understand, he didn’t know why was he dreaming that, what that meant.

He wasn't scared because of the dreams; he was scared because he felt like he was getting crazy. Mark was scared because he didn’t know what was happening in his head and couldn’t bring himself to talk about it with others.

The worst part was the melancholy that he felt after dreaming, he felt sad, frustrated, even useless. And nothing made sense to him, nor his emotions or the dreams themselves. He just wanted someone to make it make sense for him.

“Better?” Taeyong asked, worried. Mark felt bad for being there, keeping his brother up when the other had classes the next morning as well. Taeyong didn’t have any obligation to endure Mark’s fucked sleep schedule, but yet he did.

And Mark was so grateful for that.

“Yeah, sorry” he answered, voice hoarse. He sat beside his brother on the bed, shaking a little.

It was four in the morning and the room was pretty much dark, except for the night light Taeyong kept on every time Mark slept with him.

“Nothing to be sorry about.” assured his brother, with an easy smile “But, you know you can talk to me, right? I mean, I’m not a professional psychiatrist, but I know how to listen. If you ever want to talk about… this dreams you keep having, or anything, I’m right here, Mark. No pressure, just telling you so you know.”

Mark didn’t want to talk about anything. Not in the middle of the night, not in the morning. Maybe never. But the offer was highly appreciated.

“It’s fine, Taeyong. I’m not fine, not gonna lie, but right now I don’t need to talk, I just need— “.

But before he could say that he needed some real and good sleep, Taeyong was wrapping him with his arms, in a warm embrace. Not what he was going to ask for, but he’d take whatever at that point, to be honest.

“I really hate to see you through all this.” Taeyong mumbled “You don’t deserve any of this and yet...” he sniffed. Mark hugged him even tighter “I’m sorry, Mark.”

“Not your fault, Tae. It’s not my fault either. It’s just a very fucked situation, but I’m sure I’ll get over it eventually” He wasn’t that sure himself, but he wouldn’t say that to his poor, sleep deprived brother, who was going through it at that moment “Just, be patient with me. You already are, and I’m very, very thankful, really.”

“Okay. Yeah. Dad and mom and me, and everyone, we’ll be patient” he nodded.

Mark smiled a little. Yeah, he’d do his best to recover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That’s chapter two! I hope you enjoyed it. Sorry if there's any mistake :/
> 
> Please tell me what you think about this so far and thanks for reading ♡


	3. home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Watching the six boys interact, Mark had a feeling that he would need exercises to combat stress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! In this chapter it's written how Mark met the dreamies adhjsd.
> 
> This is, of course, another Mark's dream, but only the dream, without the context of how did he go to sleep like in chapter two.
> 
> TW/ a dead animal. I know it isn't something very shocking but like,,,, its guts and blood are mentioned and i have seen many authors that warn about dead animals so i think that's something i should do too!

He woke up in the middle of the forest.

  
The sun shone brightly and light filtered through the leaves of the large trees. Below him there was grass and dirt. He heard a bird sing.  
He got up, confused. He didn’t even wear his uniform and his backpack was not with him. He had the clothes that he normally wore, he knew because he could never mistake that black sweatshirt that originally belonged to Taeyong but now it was more his than his brother's, the most comfortable pants he had, dark, ordinary shoes that he normally used to run.

  
Why was he wearing that and where was he? He remembered perfectly going home from school, walking through the usual park. Clearly that wasn’t the park, that was a damn forest.  
Not knowing what else to do, he started walking. He didn’t know where he was going, but eventually he found a cabin in the middle of a clearing. It was beautiful, with two floors and with several windows with curtains in front. It had a small porch and a fence that surrounded the construction, which didn’t make much sense to him because there didn’t seem to be neighbors with which to maintain a division of lands. Maybe it was because the forest animals.

  
Mark crossed the fence and knocked on the cabin door. One, twice. Nothing. He tried the classic "good afternoon, is there anyone at home?", Again nothing. He knew that he should never enter other people's houses out of politeness, manners and self-protection, but the silence of the forest was making him nervous, so with a soft "excuse me" he entered.

  
As he imagined, the house was empty. You could tell that nobody had been there in a long time.

  
There were several pieces of furniture, all in good condition but covered in a lot of dust, just like the walls and the floor. There was no mess, just dirt typical of abandonment. The cupboards were completely empty in terms of food but not in plates, glasses, cups, there was a whole crockery there, the bookcases were empty and the closets of the rooms upstairs had sheets and blankets, the house had two bathrooms that had shampoo and soap, in addition to the toilet, the shower and the sink, and there were some towels.

  
There was no sign of any person; food, photos, anything. Nothing to indicate that someone was there at some time close to that. At most, a first-aid kit in one of the bathrooms, which only had the basics like gauze and disinfectants. Oh, and some very simple changes of clothes but that were a little big for Mark.

  
He was tired and, he was not going to lie, scared. He didn’t know where he was, there was no one anywhere. He wanted to cry, he wanted to go home. But he didn’t know how, all he knew was that this cabin was a shelter from the outside, so he stayed there all night, after discovering that he had some candles and matches in the kitchen, in the gloom of the room.

  
He didn’t sleep at all.

  
The next morning, he spent the whole day outside, walking near the cabin so he wouldn’t get lost but tried to see someone. He found some wild fruits and that was his food. He was grateful to have been a boy scout as a child.

 

In the evening he returned to the hut, which was still as dusty and lonely as when he left it. This time he fell asleep, unable to help himself.

  
He was like this for a week. He counted the days by placing a small stone on the table in the living room. With the passage of time, Mark was taking more confidence in that house, little by little recognizing that he was completely alone with no way to contact someone in the middle of a forest.

  
He cleaned the cabin thoroughly, he couldn’t be sleeping in a place full of dust. As he swept the floor of the room with a broom he found in the first floor utility room, he discovered something a little ... strange. It was a picture that was stuck between the wooden boards that formed the ground, so it was impossible to see inside without getting close enough. There were seven boys sitting on the porch of the cabin, smiling and slightly dirty, they seemed to have finished playing some soccer game or something like that. At the feet of each one their names were written with a green marker. Johnny, Jeonghan, Minghao, Junhui, Yuta, Taehyung and Minki.

  
In the back of the photo, in the same elegant letters with which the names were written, it read: "hey, whoever you are, please enjoy this house, if you need refuge, enter and feel like at home, that's the goal of this cabin, provide for those who have nothing, we didn’t have anything at the beginning, don’t feel guilty. This is a place with space for seven people, take advantage of it, become friends, family. Time flies by, and remember: try to not forget.  
-With affection, nct u. "

 

Mark didn’t understand what they meant by not forgetting, so he only took the word of those nct u and stayed there.

  
Whatever it was, at the end of the second week, while picking fruit near the river at dusk, he found a blond boy. And he would have been euphoric if it hadn’t been because the boy was very beaten, unconscious and obviously dehydrated, as well as very thin.

  
As he could, he took him to the cabin, where he cleaned his wounds, which fortunately were no more than many scratches, which must have burned a lot, but at least they were not deep. Dealing with dehydration was more difficult, however. To begin with, he didn’t have electrolytes anywhere. After practically digging in the medicine cabinet and throughout the house, he managed to find three envelopes of electrolytes. Which, according to the time it was based on the last time he saw a calendar and the pebbles that told him that thirteen days had passed after that, it was about to expire in exactly two months.  
He dissolved the contents of one of the envelopes in a glass of water and gently made the other drink it. He spent the whole night awake giving the boy little sips of electrolytes and a light and soft diluted juice he made, just like the one Taeyong did when Mark went out to play with his friends during the summer, so he wouldn’t become dehydrated.

  
Once or twice the boy woke up, but his vision was unfocused and Mark was sure he wasn’t fully awake, lost in the haze of fever, but still spoke to him. He introduced himself and explained what he had to drink, each time he woke up Mark smiled and caressed his forehead, talking quietly and softly.

  
It was the next morning, almost noon, when the guy finally regained consciousness. Mark introduced himself again and explained everything that had happened and how he found him fainted near a bush.

  
"Thank you very much for taking care of me," the boy smiled “My name is Jisung, it's nice to meet you, Mark. I have been walking through the forest for days and you are the first person I see.”

  
They got along well. Jisung was still weak, so he didn’t move from the biggest sofa in the room all day, eating the fruits that Mark offered him and drinking another envelope of serum, dozing from time to time but regaining the energy and desire to chat every time Mark approached.

  
They never said it out loud, but it was implied that they would stay together. Jisung recovered and didn’t leave, and Mark never even considered telling him to do it.

  
Jisung told him that he had also been returning from school on the way to his mother's flower shop when he lost consciousness and then he woke up in the middle of that forest with no idea of anything, wandering for two weeks. He was good with plants, he knew a lot about them, but apparently the side of the forest where he was was too eroded to grow anything other than grass and the river was too far away, so when he finally managed to find some vegetation he was already dying of hunger, dehydrated and beaten.

  
Mark little by little was teaching him what he knew about plants and Jisung not, which was little but still counting. However, Jisung soon overtook him and began experimenting with even the plants that neither of them had ever seen.

Because the forest was weird. Many plants were weird; bananas, a tropical fruit, in the middle of the hill. Apples growing in vineyards. Grapes in oaks. Purple peaches with seeds, not a bone, orange seeds. Oranges with pink dots and blue shells. Fruits and plants that they had never seen. The same with the few animals with which they came to bump. Sure, there were rabbits and squirrels, and he was sure he heard a wolf howl, but there were also the deer with elephant ears and the eagles with the giraffe's neck. The wolf was as big as a horse.

  
Nothing made sense.

 

 

  
They met Jeno in a strange situation: Jisung and Mark walked quietly near the river during their afternoon walk to stretch their legs, chatting comfortably about the benefits of a certain flower for the back. They didn’t want to admit it, but they were becoming housewives. Whatever. Mark stumbled over a stone and ended up falling face down on the ground. From that angle he noticed that entering the forest there was a boy sitting on the grass with a dead deer in front of him. The boy, with black hair and face so serious that it was scary, watched Mark with a raised eyebrow, as if unable to believe how clumsy he was. Jisung noticed the boy too when he helped Mark get up. The boy had his hands stuck in the abdomen of the animal and next to him there was a lot of viscera.

  
He was cleaning a deer. He was taking out his guts what the actual fuck. At least the animal didn’t seem to rot or anything, Mark could assure that the boy had killed the deer.

  
Then there were the three of them there. Mark and Jisung watching with a mixture of terror, curiosity and disgust at the other boy, who seemed annoyed by their presence, and decided to ignore them to continue removing the guts of the deer.

  
"You, uh," Mark began uncomfortably “Are you going to eat all that deer alone?"

  
Of course, the boy, who introduced himself as Jeno, wasn’t going to eat all that alone, it was too much, so he ended up sharing. They had a nice dinner and Mark was sure that Jeno would stay with them in the same natural way as Jisung, but the next morning, when they woke up, they found that Jeno had left.

  
For two days, Mark and Jisung wondered what had happened to Jeno and ate the dried meat of the animal that the other boy left them, because he had told them that, obviously, without refrigeration, it would spoil soon but that if they dried it would last longer. Also, he had taken care to go and leave the remains of the animal away so as not to bring wolves or bears to the cabin. Mark didn’t understand if he had buried what was left of the deer or if he had just thrown it on the side of a tree.

  
On the morning of the third day, however, Jeno returned with plenty of rabbits, ducks and squirrels for Mark to prepare. Jisung laughed saying that Jeno was like a cat, only that instead of bringing dead birds or rats to their owners, he brought wild animals. The aforementioned looked at him with annoyance and explained that he was part of the Military Academy in Seoul, when Mark asked him how he knew how to hunt. It made sense; In that school they didn’t train soldiers, they trained the government killing machines and that was well known. He smiled and asked him to help Jisung clean the room.  
Jeno stayed with them.

 

 

  
The other four arrived all together and unforeseen.

  
One morning, so early that only Jeno and Mark were awake, they knocked on the door. Jeno was awake because of his rigorous military routine in which he got up as soon as the sun came up, and Mark was because he had always had trouble sleeping well, so sometimes it was six in the morning on Sunday and he was already standing.

  
"Good day! Is there anyone at home!? I know there is someone at home, please open!" A sing-song voice called to the other side of the door, animated. Jeno and Mark looked at each other.

  
Mark went to open, meeting the prettiest boy he had ever seen: tanned skin, golden eyes, brown and wavy hair, fluffy and clearly soft, a cheerful and playful smile. Oh, his heart suddenly felt weird.  
And behind the cute boy there were three more boys. One tall and with dark brown hair, with a pleasant face. Another with red hair, thin and shorter. The last one had light brown hair and was quite cute.

  
"I'm Haechan, but you can call me Donghyuck," the beautiful boy introduced himself with the softest and most beautiful voice of all. "They are Jaemin, Renjun and Chenle, there are two more guys inside, right?" Donghyuck's smile grew a little more at Mark's surprised expression. "Our destinies are connected, by the way! The fate of the seven! Can we come in? They are tired of walking."

  
He let them pass more than anything out of curiosity. Donghyuck was... strange. Like, genuinely strange. His skin literally glowed as if it had been made of small particles of stars or sun. His eyes were golden, of a tone that Mark had only seen in his mother's gold ring. His presence seemed to rejuvenate and make the room warmer, but perhaps that was Mark's perception.

  
Once Jeno dragged Jisung into the room, Donghyuck began to explain that they were on a planet called Neo in a dimension far from their own. He told them that Neo was actually a very playful living being, and that she liked to drag humans from time to time, let them live her magic for two years and then return them to Earth without memories. He said everything while drinking tea. Donghyuck also mentioned being a god, one of the races that inhabited Neo. He told them that they now had a power of nature but that they were not active because for that to happen they had to go to the Cherry ravine to claim the precious stones that would activate them. He explained that he was sure that their destinies were intertwined because a few years ago the same thing had happened: seven people dragged to Neo who met in that house and lived an incredible experience and friendship. Apparently, Hyuck had been on a walk on Earth when he suddenly fainted and ended up in the middle of a forest on his home planet some weeks ago.

  
Mark was sure that Donghyuck was high.

  
He expressed his thought and Donghyuck, offended, showed him that he could make the sun shut down and ignite with a snap. He really was a god.

  
After that, the conversation flowed into a show that everyone had seen as if Donghyuck hadn’t just explained to them that they were in some strange fantasy world.  
Watching the six boys interact, Mark had a feeling that he would need exercises to combat stress.

  
At that moment Mark had just sighed and accepted his fate like it was a normal thing. After, around maybe two am, he had a mental breakdown and an anxiety attack because what the fuck he was where? For how long? With _them_? But eventually he managed to breath evenly again and start to adapt to the whole… living in a new planet thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's chapter three. I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> I have soooo many ideas for this and so many plot twists, i'm very very excited to write all that.
> 
> Oh, and yeah, here mark mentions a minki. Yup, minki as in nuest's minki aka ren (stan nu'est and stream bet bet)
> 
> Tell me what you think so far and thanks for reading ❤


	4. glad you came

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wasn’t going to lie, he felt a little guilty when he realised he was about to tell someone he met that same day about the dreams, and not his brother who had been with him all his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello it's me with a new chapter
> 
> oh, and before i forget: i recommend to check the tags once in a while because as i write i may be adding new tags and stuff but i don't think it'll change that much
> 
> there's not much else to say except: TW// anxiety attack
> 
> enjoy the reading!

Mark was sitting in a comfortable chair on a balcony. On the other side of the coffee table was a handsome young man, who was saying something, but Mark wasn’t paying attention, too stunned by the sight in front of him: it was miles and miles of nothing but green and healthy grass, covered in flowers of all types and colors that shone in the light of the blue moon.

“... Personally, it makes me very sad the story of how we ended up like this,” said the young man, discouraged. Mark began to take note of what he was saying. “It was our great grandparents who fought. Before, mystical beings protected the humans who lived in Neo. Humans, animals, other magical beings of lesser power, but above all humans. We took care of the dangers that came to this place in search of souls or fortunes, or simple chaos. We helped everyone here in whatever they needed, because that is why we have this immense power. It was not like now, that the races are so divided and hate each other.”

“What happened so that everything would end like this?” He found himself asking.

The man sighed.

“Our great grandparents began to fight to see who was the strongest. They wanted to prove that their respective races were dominant over others. Until they realized that it made no sense, because the strongest, of course, were the Gods. Their race was the most powerful, which is obvious since they exist to take care of us, the six races of mystical beings that protect humans. It was then that they declared war to the Gods, and they united their forces to banished them. The Gods were always calm and did what the races wanted, they never imposed anything, so if the races wanted them far away, they would do it: they exiled themselves to the farthest mountain in Neo, an inaccessible and dangerous place, impossible to reach if you're not a God, and they just locked themselves in there. It was then that the Leaders of that time, our great grandfathers, unleashed their powers and for a whole year they fought, ravaging everything, including the humans and magical beings they once swore to protect. Those who remained began to hate us. As you know, each race of mystical beings has a Sage, that is the first existing being of our race and also the most powerful, who is in charge of helping the Leaders and guiding them with their infinite knowledge and experience, but they don’t get too much into matters of the Leaders directly. That time, however, they did, the six Sages stopped the fight and returned to lock themselves in their temples. The leaders, spiteful, took the human and magical beings in their territories and expelled them, denying the entrance to all, leaving the beings out of their territories on their own and unprotected.”

The gentle breeze was warm and smelled of roses, the man next to him and who was also the current Fairy Leader, one of the seven races of Mystic beings, drank tea calmly, both observing the field of flowers that was in the territory of the Leader. Everything was so quiet in that place where the war hadn’t arrived yet.

“I think the important thing is that you, the current Leaders, are willing to remedy that situation. I've known them all and, Kun, believe me, they share your ideals. They want the best for Neo, they want Neo free and safe.”

"Oh, really," Kun said with a sincere smile “I don’t know what we would do without you, Mark. NCT dream is the best thing that could have happened here in Neo. Thank you.”

 

 

He went down the stairs and went to the kitchen, his mother still couldn’t believe that he was there, his father was still uncomfortable and awkward and Taeyong was as good as ever.

He began to really despise the situation.

“Hey, Mark. Do you want me to take you to school?” Taeyong asked casually.

“I thought that today you didn’t have class until like, twelve.” He responded, suspicious.

“But I can still take you and come back.”

“No thanks. I can go by myself.”

He understood that his family cared for him infinitely. They were afraid of losing him again, maybe this time forever, but they also had to understand that what they did wasn’t good for Mark, they made him feel weak, vulnerable and useless, they made him doubt and be scared that maybe their worries were right: if it had happened once, it could happen twice.

"Mark, maybe you should let Tae take you," her mother suggested slowly. As if talking to a scared animal.

He decided that he would eat his toast on the way to school. He took his things and his food and set off on his way to school.

"See you later," was the last thing he said, ignoring his father's screams for him to return.

His father didn’t talk to him much and when he did it was to scold him while screaming. He was aware that the man was doing it because he wasn’t sure exactly how to approach his youngest son who was kidnapped for two years and with whom he never had a good relationship to begin with. Mark didn’t care, he had many things to worry about before starting to pay attention to his father's hysteria.

While crossing the park in which he was kidnapped, he began to feel bad. The place was terribly lonely. There didn’t even seem to be birds or whatever. Mark was the only one there and the morning mist didn’t make things better, preventing him from seeing anything around him. He realized what was happening maybe a little late: an anxiety attack; It was difficult for him to breathe and the feeling of suffocation and fear was overwhelming him. He dropped to his knees, trembling and with less and less air. He tried to calm down but couldn’t do it.

He felt like he would die. He didn’t even know if he could die from an anxiety attack, but his heart was beating so hard it felt like it was going to explode. He was so engulfed in his terror that he barely noticed when a boy older than him knelt in front of him, not close enough to make him feel worse. Through his mind passed the fleeting thought that the boy seemed familiar. He wore casual clothes but had the pin of the university's language school to which the high school Mark attended belonged. Taeyong also went to that university but to a different faculty. The guy said something to him, but Mark didn’t listen to him, that made him more frightened, until he saw the kind smile of the boy, who looked at him with patience and calmness, and strangely that made Mark relax a bit, because it gave him confidence and security. He must be going crazy to trust a stranger.

“... You’re doing it fine. Just breathe.”

Breathe. It sounded simple but for Mark was so hard.

“Inhale and exhale, it's easy. See? Just like I do," he said. And as if his words were magical, Mark could breathe better little by little.

"Mark ... my name ... my name is ... Mark," he muttered in a jumble of english and korean that didn’t make much sense, but the boy seemed to catch it, nodding.

“Hey, Mark. I’m Johnny." he also introduced himself in english before returning to korean. “Well, Mark, you're doing fine. Breathe.”

The name. It sounded familiar. It was a common name in North America, but he was sure he already knew Johnny.

Either way, the anxiety still was not completely gone, so he couldn’t breathe properly.

“You speak English, right?” Mark looked at Johnny without understanding. Why did he suddenly ask that? “Me too. I study languages, so I think it's obvious that I know English, but actually I speak it because I'm from Chicago. I came to study the university five years ago. I'm about to graduate.”

Each person was different and dealt with these things differently. Mark recovers from his attacks when someone speaks to him. Whatever it was, he simply needed someone to be there distracting him with their words, and that was exactly what Johnny was doing.

“It seems that you attend the high school next to my college. Are you in your last year? It's a pity that I'm about to graduate, maybe if you're going to enter that university we could have seen each other around the campus. Although I will study a specialization in interpretation and oral translation, so maybe we can see each other after all.”

His chest hurt, but at least now he could breathe and was calmer. Tired, but calm. Johnny kept talking, and Mark felt the anxiety go away more and more.

"Thank you," Mark murmured, in one of Johnny's short breaks from talking.

"It's nothing," Johnny said softly “A few years ago I suffered a lot from anxiety attacks, so I know what to do. And I couldn’t just leave you here in the middle of a park at seven in the morning to deal with this by yourself.”

“Not many go through this park.”

“I know. Usually neither do I; I live in a shared house on this street, but I always go with a friend in his car. Today I decided to do some exercise, and I think it was a good idea.”

They were late, they would have to arrive at the second hour of classes, so Johnny offered to buy him something to eat on the way to school.

“How many languages do you speak?” Mark asked, his mouth full of the chocolate donut Johnny bought him, while they both waited for the older man's coffee.

“Um ... nine. I speak nine languages," he replied, laughing at Mark's surprised look “English, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Thai, Chinese and Japanese.”

“Those are many languages!” he exclaimed.

“I'm learning Russian and Portuguese” he added.

“What did you do to learn so many languages?”

“Well, I grew up with English and Korean from my mother, also in my neighborhood lived a lot of latin people, so I learned Spanish before age ten. I took the German as an elective from elementary to high school, I went to private classes of French and I learned Thai on my own with dramas" he explained, receiving his coffee, paying and leaving the premises with Mark.

“And the Chinese and Japanese?”

“Oh well, those, uh ... it's a weird story.” he cleared his throat “I was in a coma for a while. About ... two years. From sixteen to eighteen. And when I woke up ... ugh, it's going to sound weird, but when I woke up I had an intermediate level in both languages. The doctors said that something fucked happened in my brain and that from what I knew before the accident was that I learned the rest while I was in a coma. It may be true, but that doesn’t explain how I had a perfect pronunciation, as if I had been practicing with someone native in both languages for years. They said that in fact there is a syndrome about it, but normally people wake up with a foreign accent, not speaking two foreign languages. Anyway, since I somehow got the foundations of those languages, it took me less than six months to be fluent.”

That was an interesting story. Johnny woke up from a coma of two years and instead of having a somewhat damaged brain, he spoke two new languages. A bit disturbing and weird, but cool.

Mark also had a weird story, so he told it to him. He told him about his kidnapping and how he didn’t remember anything of those two years, but he had attacks and nightmares because of that. He didn’t tell him about the dreams, but he supposed that was perhaps too much for the day they met, and he hadn’t even told Taeyong, who was the person he trusted the most in the world. He wasn’t going to lie, he felt a little guilty when he realised he was about to tell someone he met that same day about the dreams, and not his brother who had been with him all his life.

They arrived at the facilities of the high school, and with the promise of seeing each other another day and with the telephone numbers of each other kept in their respective contacts, they said goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dude i really hope you're getting the hints i'm letting here and there or you're gonna get a big and unpleasant surprise lol 
> 
> anyways, yes, i do realise this is basically all dreams. I promise: in the next chapter we're gonna have that thing is written in the summary of the story ;)
> 
> edit: I'm dumb and forgot to say it but:
> 
> mystical beings -> the stronger races with the private lands (kun explained this). aka vampires, mermaids, werewolves, fairies, demons, angels and gods. 
> 
> magic beings -> elves, ghosts, etc. whaterever sobrenatural being who is NOT part of the stronger races and obviously is not a human either. 
> 
> thanks for reading ❤


	5. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Thank you. Thanks for helping my planet. Thank you for making me so happy these last two years. Thanks for keeping us together. Thank you for accepting me. Thanks for everything: for loving me and for letting me love you," he said with an innocent laugh, as if he had not given a speech that left Mark's soul and feelings in ruins “I must seem crazy saying all this now that you don’t remember anything, much less me, but I do remember you, and because I remember you and I know you, I wish you all the good things in life, especially love. Fulfill your dreams, our dreams. Set new goals, here in Neo, back on Earth, wherever. Live a long, healthy life. And be happy, Mark Lee."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I find very very important to emphasize hyuck's eyes: they're golden. But not any kind of golden, no, they shine like the sun and they're warm and beautiful and there are little sparkles of green that look like stars in his eyes and it's the key point of this character fine? I love my lil golden god so much :( he's easily on my top 5 of characters i have ever created.
> 
> anyways, remember the 'graphic depictions of violence' tag? yea, it is for this chapter (i don't think it's that explicit tho)

This dream was weird. Everything seemed sharper, as if it were really happening. As if Mark was really there. The other dreams felt as if he _had been_ there, not that he was at that precise moment in that place. A confusing feeling of numbness, but right now, his mind was as clear as when he was wide awake and after a good coffee.

He was in what appeared to be the dressing rooms of some guards, the uniforms they wore, completely black and with a band on his right arm that said "security." The two men talked without noticing that Mark was there.

"Lord Doyoung and Lord Jungkook barely manage to contain the Emperor," one of the guards was saying “It’s not long before they surpass our armies and they finish invading us.”

"Master Ten and Lord Sicheng haven’t even been able to find a clue of the dreamies’ whereabouts, much less of nct u, those guys are our only hope of saving Neo and we don’t know where they are or if they're alive.”

“We need the Gods, but those who are more likely to reach them, NCT dream, are not here and we can’t figure out how to contact with them.”

“And nct u were really strong guys, only one of them could defeat hundreds of enemy soldiers. That would give us a lot of time to think of a better plan. Time for the Lords to recover from their injuries.”

“All those nct u and nct dream brats were annoying and noisy, but they were powerful. I guess I miss them, even if they just made mess and mischief.”

“I heard that at this point the U kids must be finishing the human college. The older ones, at least. Humans age fast" he said, smiling with melancholy.

“Don’t you feel something strange?” Asked a guard suddenly. The other looked at him strangely for a few seconds before nodding.

“Now that you mention it, yes. A strange presence is felt, although it’s not invasive or bad. It's... known, actually.”

They didn’t say anything for a while, until they looked at each other with wide, surprised eyes.

“Mark!”

“Call Master Ten!”

“Mark Lee is in the room!”

In less than four seconds there was a huge scandal, which Mark watched with interest. Was it just his presence? Did that mean he was something like invisible? Nobody was looking directly at him in his corner of the room, everyone seemed to look for him, however. Men came in with machines and hurriedly placed them on the ground and lit them. They were rare machines; with bright liquids inside, in strange shapes, making weird sounds.

A man entered through the door. He was short but he did impose. His hair was black and his skin tanned, he wore a uniform similar to that of the guards but with golden details and many medals. His eyes were orange, too. He looked at Mark straight in the eyes.

"Hello, Mark." He smiled at him. His smile was beautiful “I know you don’t understand any of this, it's normal. You don’t remember us, but thanks for showing up here and giving me a clue to locate you.”

“Master, we start the tracking of Mark Lee’s bonds with NCT dream.”

"Start with Donghyuck," Ten ordered, before returning his attention to Mark again “I'm going to bring them back, Mark. Even without remembering you do your job as the leader of the dreamies and you come here, where we can trace the others through you.”

"Master, the presence of Mark Lee fades," reported a guard, giving him something that looked like a cell phone Ten, who squeezed it in his hand, causing the thing to give off a bright purple light.

"I'll find Hyuck, Mark," Ten said solemnly “Even if I have to go to the end of the world myself, I'm going to bring him home. It doesn’t matter that you don’t remember him. Hyuck is coming home.”

Ten's eyes shone even brighter, and then everything went dark.

The next scenario of his dream was colder and uglier. It was in some dirty and freezing dungeon, with stone walls. In one of the walls was a boy of his age chained with thick green shackles on his ankles and wrists, which bled. Something made him think that the material of what the shackles were made was what hurt the pretty and tanned young skin of the guy. His clothes were dirty and torn, with spots of both fresh and dry blood. The poor boy was beaten and scratched on all sides, his hair messy and damaged. His head was down, so Mark couldn’t see him very well, but he could notice the bruises and scabs, the split lip at the corner and the swollen nose.

Mark got angry. It bothered him to see the boy like that. He wanted... He wanted to get him out of there, take him to a safe place, treat his wounds and then make sure that whoever did that to him suffered a thousand times more.

A slightly disturbing thought, if he reflected it well.

A tall and athletic guy entered the place, chestnut hair and with a funny smile.

"Good morning, Haechan," the guy greeted. The chained boy didn’t move “How rude, not answering to who so kindly wishes you a great day.”

The boy didn’t say anything, so the guy continued.

“Ah, I love those shackles. Made of poison ivy that is capable of killing the Gods, of the few things that can really hurt them. Other beings can be killed by the simple smell of this ivy, now imagine if they touch it. But you seem to endure well, as it would be expected from a high-ranking Noble, a pure blood of the Royal line. It’s been a month since we found you lying and unconscious on a cliff. When a mystic being sleeps, really sleeps, huh? Being lying in that place for four months, woah, Haechan, a heavy sleeper, aren’t you? Or maybe not. Maybe you were that injured.”

Haechan said nothing, again. The guy sighed and knelt in front of the boy.

"You're not very talkative today, so I'll go to what interests us to leave you in peace." Abruptly and very forcefully the man took a handful of Haechan's hair and slammed his head against the wall behind him, fucking creating cracks in it. But Haechan didn’t open his eyes or complain, the only sign of pain was a small grimace.

His face was red, purple and green from the bruises, swollen from the blows and scratched. And still, Mark knew that underneath all that was the most beautiful face he had ever seen.

“They are dead, Donghyuck” Oh? Was he the Donghyuck that Lord Ten wanted to take back home? Because he wasn’t doing a great job “The dreamies died in the battle five months ago, we killed them. You know it. Your brother must believe that you died too. Nobody is waiting for you out there, why are you still not cooperating, huh? The offer is still standing: you tell me what I want to know and I kill you painlessly and quickly, you won’t even notice it. Or I can let you go, likewise you will die, but that is no longer my business.”

Mark wanted to stop the man. To stop him from threatening Hyuck, tell him to stop talking like that. But he was a passive bystander, they didn’t even know he was there. All that thing that was happening wasn’t even real, it was all a weird and disturbing dream Mark was having.

“What do you gain from not answering? You don’t have the dreamies anymore. There's nothing to protect, at least die being useful for something. Where is the path to the Mountain of the Gods?”

Hyuck didn’t respond. The man didn’t like it, because he crashed his fist against the battered cheek of Donghyuck, who again didn’t make a sound.

“Where is the path to the Mountain!?”

It was then that Hyuck turned to him, and spit blood and saliva into his face, finally opening his eyes and revealing a beautiful and brilliant golden color. Golden eyes that shone with anger, determination, fierceness, solemnity. Beautiful, full of life and emotion eyes.

Then Mark remembered: he saw Donghyuck before, in one of his dreams. He remembered the Mark of his dream losing his breath over the golden eyes that belonged to Hyuck. And he remembered it because the same feeling was there, expanding in Mark’s chest; it was warm and ticklish. It was the feeling of his heart missing a beat, his stomach doing a flip. All because of a pretty boy with the most beautiful and impressive eyes.

"Fuck you, Sed," Hyuck growled.

Sed wiped the spit with the sleeve of his shirt, notoriously angry.

"Tell me the fucking way to the fucking mountain, Donghyuck," he repeated.

" _Fuck you, Sed._ " he almost spelled, furious.

Sed stood up and kicked hard on Donghyuck's side, the sound of bones, his ribs, breaking, echoed throughout the room. Hyuck bit his lip until it bled, but not a sigh came out of his mouth.

Mark wasn’t sure what was happening but he knew he wasn’t liking it not even a bit. What kind of dream was that? Why was he so upset, sad and worried at the same time?

"We'll talk later," Sed barked, turning around.

“Whenever you want, you know that here I'll be waiting anxiously. I love our talks." Hyuck muttered sarcastically, leaning his head against the wall and breathing heavily.

"You still have energy to be a pain in the ass," Sed complained.

“I may be young in my race, but I'm still a God, I've lived more than 600 years, kid. This is nothing." he scoffed.

Sed rolled his eyes, leaving the dungeon and closing the door behind him.

Naturally, without Sed there to converse, the place fell silent. Hyuck had his head down again and his arms raised and chained, sitting against the wall. Mark watched him, somehow managing to move and get in front of the God just a few meters away from him. It really was like he was there.

He heard the heavy breathing of the other, and how exhausted he looked. In front of Sed he had put on a rather hard facade, but now that there were only the two of them there, it was as if Donghyuck had deflated, letting the pain take over his battered body. Mark would have liked to do something to alleviate his pain.

“Renjun came yesterday. Jeno a day earlier, Jaemin a day before that. And Chenle and Jisung came at the same time before the others; Those two always do everything together, even when they don’t remember they don’t separate," Hyuck chuckled. Mark watched him curiously. Was he talking to him? Could he see him like Ten did?” Always making dramatic entries, Mark. You really had to make me wait four days to see you," he booed “that idiot of Sed, saying you died. As if it were so easy to end nct dream, ha.”

Then Donghyuck knew he was there, and was talking to him. Mark moved a little closer, impatient to know what he wanted to say.

"Oh, how to start," said Donghyuck “Well, I guess maybe I should explain: I'm dying. Okay, that was too direct... Uh... Let's see... Well, it doesn’t matter. I'm dying. It's embarrassing to admit it, but that's the way it is. Within a month I'm going to die. So I'm glad everyone came to see me, even if you don’t remember me and don’t understand what I'm saying, it's good. I have so much to tell you, Mark. But I will summarize it.”

He sighed heavily, finally lifting his head and looking straight into Mark's eyes.

“They are looking for you all. They are looking for you, Mark. I know that they are turning this world upside down in order to find even a clue as to where you are; the Emperor is looking for you and the Lords are looking for you. They are looking for us. Everyone desperately looks for NCT dream. The Emperor wants us dead and the Lords want us to come back to help save Neo. And yes, it seems selfish, but if you remembered, damn, if you remembered what the dreamies did for this place, how much we love this land, how much we want to save it, well, you’d be furious at how long they are taking" he made a small grimace “I won’t intervene in the search of the Lords, neither in favor nor against, even if I have the trace of all the dreamies, and let me tell you, it seems that you have a small bond with a nct u, huh? But that is another subject. I love Neo, and I want it to be saved, so I should use the last of my vitality and strength to transmit these traces to Ten, however I won’t. You know why? Because I love Neo, but I love you more.”

That ended up catching Mark's attention.

“I know that you love Neo more than anyone, and I know that if you remembered, you’d want to return, even if it is a planet that is dying and is at war. But I'm selfish, and I don’t want you to come back to this," he murmured sadly “The human world may be in decline, but not as much as Neo. And I believe in destiny, babe. I believe that if you must return, you will return; with my help or without it. And if you don’t come back... And if you come back and I'm gone, let me tell you something, okay? First of all, don’t blame yourself. Don’t blame yourself if you arrive and I’m not here. It's not your fault, it never would be. Never blame yourself for anything you shouldn’t: If Neo dies, Mark, it's not your fault. You don’t remember, but you did and undone for Neo, if she survived so much it was mostly due to your efforts.”

It hurt. His chest ached, and as stupid as it sounded, his feelings hurt. It hurt to see the cute guy saying that. It hurt to know it was a final goodbye. It hurt to not be able to respond. And it hurt to not remember exactly who Donghyuck was and how relevant he was to Mark. He could feel the sincerity and pain of his words, but he couldn’t understand why it hurt so much. He couldn’t understand completely if he didn’t remember, if he wasn’t sure if all this was real or if it was a joke made by his brain that went crazy since the kidnapping.

“Don't blame yourself if you don’t remember. Neo is like that, she gives you everything with a time limit and then she throws you out without memories, leaving only strange dreams. This is when I ask you for two favors: the first is that you keep Neo in the warmest place in your heart, keep us there as a good dream, or a bad one, but keep us. Ugh, I hate farewells, and they're already six with this in just four days, but it's necessary.”

He cut himself to take a shaky breath before continuing:

“The second favor is that you be happy. Do what we wanted to do, even if our plans were for Neo, do it on the Earth. Buy a house on the beach, adopt a dog or two, travel the world, participate in that contest to eat hot dogs in the shortest time possible. Find someone who loves you. That's what I want the most, that someone will adore you even more than I do. And I hope you love that person with the same intensity. I hope, from the bottom of my heart and with total sincerity, that you love. That you love and that that love be returned with more strength. Let me tell you, Mark, that I love you and will always love you with everything I have: soul, body, mind, everything that exists. And I know someone else will also because you are easy to love, it is impossible not to love you.”

Hyuck smiled at him. A sad, full of melancholy and resigned smile. And beautiful and loving and precious and bright like a thousand suns. A smile that stole Mark's breath. The smile that dazzled Mark once more.

“Thank you. Thanks for helping my planet. Thank you for making me so happy these last two years. Thanks for keeping us together. Thank you for accepting me. Thanks for everything: for loving me and for letting me love you," he said with an innocent laugh, as if he had not given a speech that left Mark's soul and feelings in ruins “I must seem crazy saying all this now that you don’t remember anything, much less me, but I do remember you, and because I remember you and I know you, I wish you all the good things in life, especially love. Fulfill your dreams, our dreams. Set new goals, here in Neo, back on Earth, wherever. Live a long, healthy life. _And be happy, Mark Lee._ ”

Mark didn’t remember, but it was obvious that his feelings did, because it was hurting him.

Hyuck's smile grew even more, narrowing his eyes until they almost disappeared, making that smile even more perfect.

From Hyuck's chest came out a warm yellow light that made Mark see everything too bright until it blinded him, and when he opened his eyes again, he was in his bed. It was a minute before the alarm went off and his cheeks were soaked with tears that fell without control from his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yup, another chapter. yup, hyuck is so in love with mark. yup, the first proper interaction between the protagonists was when one of them was saying his final goodbye.
> 
> thank you so much for the comments and kudos so far, and thank you for reading ❤


	6. the truth untold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jisung didn’t have an actual older brother, but he supposed that if he did, he would tell him what he told to the man. He gave him confidence. Even if he didn’t know his name or anything about him.
> 
> Maybe because he didn’t know his name or anything about him was that Jisung talked so freely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter will be a little different: it's a dream, but this time it's not Mark's dream, it's Jisung's.

Jisung didn’t know where he was.

He knew he was in the werewolf castle, but he didn’t know in what exact part of the castle he was. He knew he was looking for the leader of the wolves, a certain Jungkook, but he didn’t know what he looked like; normal when the guy had been locked up by his family in his wing of the palace and the last time he was seen was when he was a little boy... more than two thousand years ago. Once or twice Jungkook left his castle to attend to important events around his kingdom, but his face wasn’t seen, because he was wearing a mask that hid all his face. The rumor was that even isolated in his room, his family made him wear a mask so they never had to see him directly, and since then, Jungkook always wore said mask.

But Jungkook was a good leader even in forced captivity. He had eyes everywhere and made decisions that always worked out well. His people knew him by his enormous heart and his infinite compassion and wisdom, which was obvious seeing it was one of the most prosperous kingdoms. The villagers were happy with their leader, and of course they wanted to know him. They wanted to see the face of who had brought them to such peace.

But nct dream wasn’t there to fulfill the wishes of the wolves. They were looking for Jungkook to convince him to join his plan to overthrow the Emperor. They had separated when they sneaked into the palace and although they spent a good week memorizing the map of the place, Jisung had been lost. He was never good to remember things. However, he could swear that the point where he was was nowhere on the map. As if it didn’t exist, but of course it existed because Jisung was walking down that long corridor half lit by a candle every five or six meters, something that didn’t do much for his sight. Besides that, several candles were already consumed, evident the long time that they were burning, as if the servants didn’t pass by there often to light them up once more.

Sighing, Jisung set out to follow his long and straight path hoping that the others would be luckier than him by finding Lord Jungkook, because Jisung was no longer looking for him, at that point he was just trying to find a way out because in about fifteen minutes he had to meet with his friends at the agreed point just outside the castle to retire from there.

He could understand why the Lord was still locked up, in part. Jungkook, even though his mother lost the power she had and Jungkook inherited the kingdom and power, decided to continue with his imprisonment. No one could tell him not to leave. The kingdom was his, and everything inside, including the castle, but he never came out. Jisung supposed that it must be difficult to have spent centuries locked in, and suddenly having all the freedom in the world must be strange. That is to say, it was his family that locked him up, an event that was, in short, traumatic.

At the end of the long corridor he was finally able to see a door. It was big and black, with details like flowers and branches of trees in golden color. Having no more to do, he knocked gently and when he didn’t receive an answer, he entered. He hoped he wouldn’t meet anyone, and for a second he thought that was the case, until he looked at the window that covered a large part of the wall at the back of the room, and noticed someone. Tall, thin but with muscular and strong body, brown hair and silver big eyes looking at him without much emotion. He wore a simple white shirt and dark pants and was standing near the window, seeing through it before Jisung arrived.

The room was huge and all the walls were full of bookcase, without a single centimeter free of books except the window and a smaller door than the entrance.

"Oh, my apologies," he said kindly, giving a sharp bow “I'm new to the castle, I got lost. I'm sorry to have interrupted you.”

He had no idea who this handsome man was, but he seemed important and definitely much stronger than Jisung, so he'd better make him think he was a clueless servant and not a dreamie, one of the most wanted "criminals" in Neo.

“You work here?” the man asked. He looked more like a young man just in his 20s, actually. His voice was pleasant, sweet and intoned, but also very, very low. If not for the silence and stillness of the room, Jisung wouldn’t have heard him even breath.

"Since two days ago, sir.”

The wolf was left watching, without saying anything and showing no emotion with his face. He nodded once and looked back through the window.

“You are human” it wasn’t a question, but it didn’t sound like a reproach either. In any case, Jisung would say that it was a curious estate, a ‘what does a human as young and fragile as you here?’

“I live in the village on the outskirts of the kingdom. I come in the morning and return home in the afternoon." he lied “The pay is good.”

“Then, you should get going.”

“Excuse me, what?”

“You return home in the afternoon. It's already afternoon. During the night, the wolves go out to hunt. Soon it will be night.”

Jisung looked through the glass and yes, it would soon get dark. It wasn’t like it mattered a lot. Amazing magic powers and all that, but it wasn’t something the other knew.

“I was finishing a cleaning task in a place in the castle that I do not know and now I do not know how to get to an exit” he laughed, pretending to be ashamed.

The man nodded again, still not looking at him.

“Cross all the doors. There are eight. Start with that. Beware of the last one, it will take you to an area without pruning and full of overgrow grass. Go down the tree that covers the door. It's an ugly path, but you'll be outside the palace.”

“Thanks, sir” this time, that wasn’t a lie “I didn’t know what I’d do if I didn’t arrive on time.”

"Go home safely," he said, monotonous and without taking his eyes off the cloud he watched, but Jisung could feel some sincerity in his words. He gave him a smile that Jisung expected him to see through the glass and set off on his way, thanking once more.

He went through a room with a cozy bed, went through a bathroom, went through what appeared to be a werewolf gym (not like the ones on earth), went through a lot of rooms that would be part of a house, and eventually arrived to the exit that the man promised. He had to practically cross a forest, and when he managed to reach a clearing, he looked back. He saw the castle, smaller because of the distance, and he could see the man's window but not him, obviously. He told him it was an ugly path, but right next to the forest, behind a huge line of trees, there was a field full of the most beautiful flowers of all colors. Yes, it was an ugly road, however, it was worth it if you could appreciate that view when you reach the end.

He ran to meet his friends.

...

They didn’t expect that finding Jungkook was easy, but not that difficult either.

After four long days, they had walked through most of the castle and there was still no sign of where the werewolf lord could be kept.

They had planned a week for the search, and they weren’t getting anywhere. Well, Jisung always ended up coming to the library of the man he met the first day he was in the palace. He liked that place because it was silent and the guy didn’t seem to mind that Jisung pretended to clean up just to be there for a while. Being honest, Jisung was tired. Of course he was. All the dreamies were, as would be expected from a group of teenagers trying to save a magical country in decline. So Jisung knew that he shouldn’t waste that half hour, but thirty minutes of silence in a comfortable room in the company of someone who let him talk and talk about anything was great and tempting.

The man listened to him. And Jisung knew that he listened to him because he gave him advice and answered coherently. It might seem that he wasn’t paying attention to him because he kept looking out his window, but he did pay attention to him. The teenager didn’t know why he was paying attention to him if he was supposed to be just a servant and also a young human.

...

While sneaking around the gardens he heard several things:

"It seems that the Master has been in a better mood lately, or that's what Mr. Seokjin says, at least."

"Is it true that the Master knows exactly who works in the palace?”

“Of course, Mr. Seokjin asks for his approval before hiring anyone. He knows the name of all of us who are in his palace even a few minutes, and he knows our faces. He would notice a stranger in seconds."

"They say that dreamies are approaching our kingdom.”

“As long as they don’t cause any damage, it's fine."

Not even the employees knew what Jungkook looked like or how to get to his palace wing. Only that Seokjin, something like nanny and Jungkook's right hand, knew how to get to him.

...

“You don’t have to pretend to clean. Just sit down and rest." the man said on the fourth day. Jisung left the vase in its place.

“I can’t rest while I work, sir.”

"It's not like I'm going to give you away," he said, bored.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” _doesn’t it bother you that I do nothing? Doesn’t it bother you that I talk a lot? Doesn’t it bother you that I’m here?_ All those questions hidden in the first.

And an answer as easy and sincere as:

“No. It doesn’t bother me.”

So Jisung sat down and rested. It wasn’t like he could lose his job, anyway.

...

Jisung didn’t have an actual older brother, but he supposed that if he did, he would tell him what he told to the man. He gave him confidence. Even if he didn’t know his name or anything about him.

Maybe because he didn’t know his name or anything about him was that Jisung talked so freely.

...

“What do you see through that window?” he asked, curious, on the fifth day.

"The flowers, the sky," the man said “him.”

Jisung approached. He looked through the window and notice a bit of movement near the flower field. He saw in the distance a guy who was scurrying across the field towards the flowers. Short, dark hair, clear skin, thin, even at a distance he looked pretty. He cut several flowers delicately and put them carefully into a basket.

"He's stealing them," Jisung said.

“All Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he does it. He thinks that nobody sees him. Nobody but me has noticed.”

“And me.”

The man smiled softly.

“And you.”

“Aren’t you going to report it?”

“Those are my flowers. I make them in my free time. It doesn’t bother me that he takes them. He probably only sells them. I won’t report it.”

Jisung shrugged.

“Okay.”

...

On the sixth day the Emperor's knights entered the territory only to show the power of the Emperor. They made a disaster in the towns and villages. They were violent and evil, arrogant. The dreamies fought against them because it wasn’t fair. They defended the people and their goal was to get the knights out of there.

The next goal of the knights was a town full of children and omegas. The alphas were in a meeting in a distant city. The dreamies were already there when the knights arrived.

It would have been easier if the knights of the kingdom were there, but with chaos in literally the whole territory, it was normal for them to take some time to get there. But, again, the dreamies were just teenagers. They had their magic, but the knights too, and they had the advantage of experience, number and military rank. There the only one with training was Jeno, and he couldn’t take care of everything.

Jisung was trying to get rid of a particularly annoying knight when he heard blows and shouts, and over the head of the guy he saw fly out some very beaten knights. And soon the one on top of him joined them.

It was the palace man who did all that and the one who came to help Jisung to get up.

“You're fine?” he asked, in the same patient, flat, soft voice with which he told him to be tolerant of Jaemin even if he didn’t like physical contact because Jaemin did and he just wanted to show his appreciation to Jisung.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

"I'm glad." He smiled, the same short smile, fraternal and tender as always.

Jisung saw men in blue uniforms approach, and recognized them as the super elite guard of Lord Jungkook.

“Master Jungkook, we have taken care of all the knights of the city with the help of the young men, what is the next order?”

And Jisung, feeling as surprised as stupid, saw the man of the palace answer:

“I want them all out of my territory.” When his knights left, Jungkook turned to look at him and chuckled at Jisung's face “Park Jisung of nct dream, is there something you want to talk to me about or were you just wandering around my castle for five days for fun?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoyed the chapter, thanks for reading ❤
> 
> this is the chapter i have enjoyed writing the most, idk why i just loved every second. Maybe because i love the character of jungkook a lot but yeah, this is my favorite chapter.
> 
> i made a moodboard for the fic! (it was so much fun and now i want to make a moodboard for everything) (maybe i should make one for every dreamie?? so their characters are easier to understand idk tell me if it's a good idea)
> 
> [moodboard](https://twitter.com/jenosglow/status/1146643050250170368)
> 
> yeah that's my twitter lol


	7. 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If everything was an invention, if none of that was real, if that didn’t happen, if everything was invented by Mark's mind out of nowhere, why Lee Jeno, whom he met in his dreams, was standing there, perfectly alive and perfectly real?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok from now on everything will escalate quickly. we're finally getting into the real plot here my friends. ready for it? :)

He had several friends, but the closest to him was Wong Yukhei, a boy of his age whom he met when he was ten years old. Yukhei had moved to Korea from China, and at that time wasn’t very good with the language, so the other children made fun of his lack of ability to communicate. Mark understood it a bit since he had grown up in Canada also until he was ten years old, and even though he did know the language perfectly, he understood the feeling of being in an unknown country where he had to speak another language from one day to the next. So they became friends.

Yukhei was currently very popular; his personality was a personality that attracted people in lots, fun and glowing, full of energy. However, even if there were a lot of people in his life, Mark was his best friend.

After the kidnapping, Mark had driven everyone away, including Yukhei. It had been five months since he returned and he had not yet spoken to his friend. He had met him in the corridors and gave him a short smile, nothing more. In class, Mark had sat in the far corner, away from everyone including Yukhei. The first month Mark spent in the hospital, so sedated that he couldn’t even open his eyes, because when he wasn’t sedated the panic attacks were aggressive and continuous, affecting his health terribly; it was forbidding to anyone who wasn’t his direct family to see him, because even his lifelong neighbors induced him to panic, as if he didn’t recognize them. The second month he spent at home resting, leaving only occasionally with Taeyong and his mother for short walks.

The psychiatrist spoke with Yukhei to explain what was happening, just as she spoke with Mark's family. Yukhei understood that he shouldn’t put pressure on Mark. However, so many months after his return, he just wanted to hug him, because he had missed him so much those two years. But he couldn’t because Mark avoided him at all costs.

But Yukhei made a decision: he’d approach Mark when he left the school, when it was time to go home. It would be as simple as greeting him and staying for a while if Mark would allow it, if Yukhei saw him uncomfortable he would leave. Simple.

It sounded simple, although at that moment, behind a pillar watching Mark put things in his locker, Yukhei felt nervous and without courage enough to walk up to him. What if it seriously bothered him? What if it caused him an attack? He didn’t want Mark to have another attack just when he had only one on the day, which was a new record. What if, for some reason, Mark hated him and that's why he didn’t speak to him? He wouldn’t know how to react if that were the case.

Mark, for his part, had finished setting up his books for a while, now he only moved things from one side to the other to give Yukhei time to finish gather courage: if he left it would cause even more stress to the poor boy. Because of course Mark had noticed Yukhei behind the pillar, not that his friend was very discreet even if he wanted to, he was too big, loud and clumsy to not be noticed.

He knew that he was doing wrong by keeping everyone away, especially Yukhei who wasn’t to blame for anything, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t even notice he was doing it. But luckily, he realized that what he was doing wasn’t healthy and should stop. He was going to stop. The first step to return to his old life, normal and calm, was to try to repair his relationships, starting with his friendship with Yukhei, which he left suspended for a long time even after he returned, and it wasn’t fair to his friend.

Sighing, he closed his locker. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Yukhei becoming more stressed at the thought that Mark was leaving.

“Xuxi?” Mark called, with a warm smile, earning a startled yelp from his friend, who didn’t expect to be discovered, causing Mark's laughter. “Something happens? You've been standing there a long time.”

Yukhei, upon seeing himself discovered, cursed under his breath and was forced to leave his hiding place, and timidly approached the shorter one, who smiled at him amused.

“No, nothing happens, just... I wanted to say hello... and ask how you are... so um, hello. How are you?”

"I'm fine," he said, chuckling. “How are you? We haven’t talked for a while, sorry for that. I had a lot to think about and wanted to be alone.”

“No no! Don’t worry about that," he said quickly. “It's okay. I understand that. I understand you want to be alone." he cleared his throat. “I'm going to leave, then...”

“You have something to do?”

The other boy seemed surprised by the sudden question.

“Oh. No, not really.”

“What if we go to eat something, then? I haven’t gone anywhere other than my home, the school and the hospital in the last five months. It would be nice to see how much our favorite places have changed during these two years I was... um, out.”

The psychiatrist told him to go out, to do what he always did. But Mark didn’t want to, he didn’t want to leave the house or his room. His mother and Taeyong had tried to get him out a thousand times, but they stopped trying after Mark told them he didn’t want to, because they didn’t want to pressure him. Within a week of that dream where Hyuck said goodbye to him, Mark was more anxious and with more attacks than usual during the night, with less desire to leave. However, if he was with Yukhei he felt safe, he felt fine, so he would go out with him. He wanted to hang out with him.

Mark pretended not to notice the looks everyone gave them, surprised that he and Yukhei were talking again.

They went to the usual burger shop. The walls were now a dark blue and were no longer white as Mark remembered, it was a little bigger but that ugly picture of a classic car was still hanging in the back of the place. Mark was happy to be there, it was a good feeling, the feeling of returning to a place appreciated and known.

The owner, Seung, a fifty-year-old man, smiling and slender, with almost no hair and eyes always hidden by his smile that shrunk them, greeted Yukhei effusively from his place behind the bar. Mark leaned out from behind his friend to greet Seung, who adopted an expression of surprise, relief and happiness as soon as he saw him.

"Mark, I'm glad to see you with Yukhei around here again!” Seung exclaimed.

“It's also good to see you, Seung.”

“What are you going to take?”

“The usual” how good it was to be able to say that again.

“Perfect!”

The two boys went to their usual table, which was far from the people and near a window.

"I'm glad to be here," commented Mark. “So? Something that happened during these two years of what you want to talk about?”

"Nothing very important," Yukhei said. “Last year we were close to the Nationals with the school soccer team. I hope that this year we will achieve it: we have the help of Yuta Nakamoto, he is an exchange student and one of the best players in Japan, and this season he is helping us to train.”

They kept talking, and it was almost as if those two years hadn’t happened. They were comfortable in the presence of the other, joking and wasting time, eating hamburgers in the usual place.

Being back with his best friend was a comforting feeling, which allowed Mark to forget everything that was happening in his life at that moment. He needed a real distraction out of the ordinary, because he usually stayed at home to read, write songs or watch anime, and it was fun and it put his mind to think about other things and also put his negative feelings on hold, but nothing like being there eating junk food with Yukhei.

Since he woke up in the hospital, Mark felt a little different. Maybe it was that he had grown older, but now Mark was much more careful with people. Maybe even distrustful. However, it was in that distrust that the strange thing was: he only distrusted some people. Yukhei never, nor Taeyong either, but his father and mother yes. He could trust Johnny, to who in less than an hour wanted to tell him his most intimate secrets, but he couldn’t tell his father that his dreams were crazy, his feelings overflowed him; guilt, fear, pain. He couldn’t tell him that he felt he was dying and needed help, but he didn’t know what kind of help. You're supposed to tell your parents anything, Mark used to be able to tell them anything, but now he couldn’t imagine doing it, full of baseless mistrust. Taeyong was the same as them to Mark, not that he didn’t trust him, he just didn’t want to talk about what was happening with him.

At some point of time and for some reason, things had changed for Mark. Now he felt increasingly distant from his family, and it was at times like that, in the company of a friend, that he noticed how tense he was at home, almost on guard. _It's not like they're going to attack you all of a sudden, Mark, for god's sake, this is your family, you're safe here_ , he told himself.

Either way, Mark was happy to have met with Yukhei, he kept remembering the conversations they had while going back to his home in a cab.

The car stopped at a traffic light, just outside the Military Academy of Seoul, one of the most prestigious and important in South Korea. There they didn’t train soldiers, they trained killing machines, unstoppable hackers and fearsome strategists. He had heard that that school was part of a huge chain of academies dedicated to the same, and that Seoul’s one was in the position number two of the best. To be accepted in there as a student, you had to have skills almost professionals since childhood, because the boys and girls who studied and lived there were training since they were children.

A truth that nobody hid and that everyone knew was that in that school the murderers of the government and their teams (intelligence, resources) were trained. They combined military techniques with murder techniques.

He watched from the window of his cab a group of boys and girls coming out of the huge doors of the institution, all in their black jacket uniform with military badges and dark pants too, in addition to their heavy and big boots. However, who caught his attention was the quiet boy who simply followed his companions in silence and without expression. And he caught his attention because it was Jeno, one of the boys of his dreams.

He felt a chill run down his back. That was Jeno. He was someone who appeared in those strange and vivid dreams of his. At least, he believed they were dreams, but seeing Jeno standing there, his doubts widened.

If everything was an invention, if none of that was real, if that didn’t happen, if everything was invented by Mark's mind out of nowhere, why Lee Jeno, whom he met in his dreams, was standing there, perfectly alive and perfectly real?

Jeno looked up, bored, and his eyes met Mark's. It was obvious and clear the surprise he felt at seeing him, just as Mark felt. What disconcerted him most was that Jeno seriously seemed to recognize him, and if those were only dreams that occurred in Mark's head and in Mark's head only, why was Jeno so surprised to see him?

There was no time for anything, anyway, when the light changed and Mark, inside the cab, followed the flow of traffic, which suddenly seemed too fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading i love yall ❤
> 
> sooo that happened huh. Meet Jeno, or how neo's people call him: The Black Death :) a lovely nickname for a lovely character! he's the baddest bitch out there you're gonna love him im sure hehe
> 
> opinions on this chapter? how are we feeling about mark seeing jeno from his cab lol
> 
> i spent so much time trying to write this chapter and at the end im :/ about it. idk it's not that i didn't like the result but i guess im not a 100% satisfied. however, i hope you enjoyed reading it! ❤


	8. superhuman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Would you kill to save a life?" the girl asked. Mark hoped she could see his expression of bewilderment. "Help me, Mark, save me and save those guys."
> 
> "Miss, I don’t understand what you're talking about-"
> 
> "Kill the Emperor."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaaaaa omg it took me a lot more of time than usual to write this chapter and im sorry i've been really busy with my graduation from high school around the corner (yes im babie) and my family wanting to go on a trip every two days and sigh sigh but it's here! and you know what else is here? nct dream's comeback aidadfj im EXCITED finally fuck omg

Donghyuck was insisting on taking them to the Cherry Cliff for a week. Mark refused to go anywhere with a name as stupid as that.

He told them that they had to go in order to awaken their blessings, the powers that Neo granted them. All that talk excited Jaemin and Chenle, but the others felt indifference, very busy with their own affairs.

After a while living with these other six boys, Mark felt how little by little a friendship formed and how they began to get to know each other more deeply, falling into a routine: Jisung took care of the garden all morning, taking care of his plants. Between Hyuck, Jaemin and Chenle cleaned the house, which always needed to be accommodated with seven teenage boys living there without adults in the middle of a forest full of mud. Jeno was in charge of hunting rabbits and hares or fishing (when it was fishing day Mark was taken with him), it was obvious that Jeno preferred to hunt a larger prey, but Renjun explained to them that it was silly because even if they were so hungry they couldn’t with a whole deer in a single day and the meat would rot and was a waste. Mark helped anyone who needed it: if Jisung's garden had more weeds than usual, he would go with him, if the house was particularly dirty, he would join the cleaning team, if Renjun wanted to do a mini-feast he would offer himself as a chef's assistant. If he noticed Jeno particularly sad, he would accompany him; Jeno never needed help, unlike the others, but, unlike the others, Jeno was the one who loneliest felt.

Mark was very curious about the kind of person Jeno was. It was evident that he was the strongest among the human boys of the cabin (Hyuck is literally a God, nobody is stronger than him), he was also quite intelligent and clever, but he wasn’t very social. At this point everyone had resigned themselves to being in the company of the others for two years and for that reason they tried to make the best time possible, however, although Jeno was an active part of this team that they were forced to form, he refused to let the others knew him beyond the facade he showed. Although he wasn’t as good as he thought to hide his emotions, despite his expressionless face. His eyes didn’t speak, they shouted, which made it much easier for Mark to realize what Jeno wanted and needed. That's why he went with him from time to time, that's why he became something like his spokesman, because Jeno always shrugged and told them to do whatever they wanted because he didn’t care when it was time to make decisions, but Mark knew that he did care.

And Jeno didn’t say anything when Mark followed him out of the cabin, even if he was not much help with anything Jeno was going to do. Sometimes Jeno would go hunting, sometimes he would just walk, always in silence, as if he had no voice. Everyone had become accustomed to his silence at this point, and nobody expected him to say anything. Therefore, on one of his walks at sunset in which Mark accompanied him, when Jeno began to speak, Mark could only look at him with surprise for a few long seconds.

"Do you think it's a good idea to go to the cliff as Donghyuck suggests?" Jeno asked, still looking straight ahead as they walked. A squirrel ran out of the way when it saw them.

"Uh," was all Mark said, still shocked that Jeno had spoken. Before the other four arrived, he had only heard Jeno speak thrice, and since the seven of them were together, he only heard him speak once, and it was to congratulate Jisung because he had managed to make very rare plants germinate. "W-well, you know, Hyuck is from here, from Neo, he knows more about this than we do."

"He said he lived on a mountain isolated from the rest of the world for 300 years, and the other 300 spent traveling between dimensions, not once has he seen more of Neo than his mountain, he knows as much of this world as we do."

And... Well, Jeno had a point. But Donghyuck also had it when he said that they were already there, in a world of magic that could normally only be accessed through books or movies, what did they lose by going for their magical powers worthy of comics? It would be the complete experience that Neo can offer. And he said that they would need Neo's blessings if they wanted to travel safely around this world, to be able to defend themselves against the abusive regime of the Emperor.

Mark saw it as the free samples given at the supermarket. Except that this wasn’t a single sample, this was the entire product.

"You're right in that," he admitted. "But I think that regardless of that, it’d be fun to see what all this fuss about blessings is."

Jeno didn’t say more, following his walk in silence. Mark didn’t speak again either. Near the cabin, already back, Jeno spoke:

"You trust him." he pointed, looking at Hyuck joking with Renjun on the porch of the house.

"You don’t?"

"He hasn’t given me a reason to trust him, or those three who came after him.”

"But they haven’t given you a reason to distrust them, either." Jeno didn’t seem to have expected that answer, if the way he looked at Mark with wide eyes indicated something. He smiled at him "It’s okay, Jeno, you don’t have to trust someone you just met, you should know him a little bit before, but you can never trust anyone if you don’t allow them to come near you. Friendships don’t form with impenetrable walls around, there must be at least a little crack."

He gave him a kind look before retreating into the cabin.

....

"I know I told you it’d be great to go for the blessings, and it will be, but I really don’t want anyone to feel obligated to go. It’s totally valid to want to stay at home." Hyuck said, the morning they decided to make the trip to the cliff. "Sometimes blessings can hurt their wearer, sometimes not all blessings are good."

"We have to die of something, Hyuck, it doesn’t matter." Jisung solved, unconcerned.

"The keeper of the cliff is named Taeil," Donghyuck began to explain, when everyone nodded at what Jisung had said. "He is something like Neo's spokesman, on Earth, Taeil would be the Pope." He explained with a giggle. "Among other things, he sees the future, he is a mythological being of the Neo culture, I suppose. Nobody knows what his race is, he is not human, but neither is he a God or an Angel, the Sages have been asked what Taeil is and they just respond that Taeil is, well, Taeil, as if that explains something. "

After that he explained that Taeil appears when his presence is necessary. He would take the Cherry Cliff to them. The cliff was a crack in the heart of Neo, that's why Taeil was always guarding the cliff and that's why it was inaccessible, because if someone managed to get to the bottom, they would run into what kept the planet alive, and that was too dangerous.

Mark wondered how it was that Neo bestowed her blessings, if it had anything to do with personality or if it was random. Not even Hyuck could answer him.

And speaking of Hyuck, he and Mark became more friends as time passed. They discovered that they didn’t have much in common, but they got on well, however. Despite not agreeing on style of clothes, music or books, they agreed on something: the sunsets of Neo were beautiful. They were not like on Earth, where the sky is a pastel orange, sometimes pink with red clouds, in Neo was the combination of silver with gold, as if molten gold spilled among the clouds of silver in the middle of a pastel red canvas. The sky was red, the clouds silvery and the last rays of sun golden. There was a point where the sun lost intensity, increasingly hidden, and the moon, always blue and not white as on Earth, was increasingly powerful, hence the silver. If the exact moment was captured, the moon and the sun were on a par at ground level, it seemed that the two celestial bodies were squeezed between the mountains of the horizon; the moon wanting to rise and the sun wanting to rest.

It was a spectacle that the two boys enjoyed quietly side by side from the top of a mound near the cabin.

They passed by the mound as they entered the forest, waiting for Taeil and Cherry to make their appearance. Which happened after five minutes of walking.

In a blink Taeil was standing before them, with a very long cliff behind him, from which came warm, light vapors, and a faint dark blue light. The cliff didn’t look very nice, but Taeil did: his brown hair was short and fell lightly on his forehead. He wasn’t very tall, which surprised Mark a little because he expected him bigger. His eyes were brown and they looked at them calmly, but also full of fun and wisdom. He supposed that since they arrived in Neo Taeil was waiting for them. For clothes he wore a simple blue robe, almost the same shade as the light emitted by the cliff.

The boys stopped a meter away from Taeil, and two meters from the edge of the cliff.

"You took your time coming," Taeil said, as a greeting, with a small smile. "I am Taeil, the spokesman for Neo and guardian of the cliff."

Hyuck stepped forward, smiling too.

"We come for Neo's blessings." he explained.

"Of course." He nodded. "To receive the blessing you must throw yourself to the cliff and trust that she won’t let you fall, you’ll be suspended in the air and before you a small light will appear, that is your blessing, take it and you will return."

Yeah, well, Mark wasn’t too sure about throwing himself on a dark, hot cliff.

"Who will go first?" Taeil asked, looking at them expectantly.

As Mark wasn’t sure about this, the others were not either, and it could be seen in their distrustful grimaces and in Jeno's eyes. Sighing, he walked until he was right in front of the cliff, next to Taeil. He looked down and all he saw was darkness and light blue rays.

"I'll go first."

Taeil smiled, and put a hand on his shoulder, as if knowing that if he didn’t Mark wouldn’t be able to throw himself.

If the Mark of the future were to think a little, he would realize that throwing himself on a cliff that led to the heart of a planet, surrounded by guys he didn’t know very well with a magical being that nobody knew anything about saying that he should trust Neo, _that_ , was the first act of tremendous madness and immense rebellion he made.

Blessings were forbidden in Neo, a law of the Emperor. No one could collect their blessings or they would be executed. Mark didn’t know that, but if he had known, he would have jumped with more desire.

He fell for what he guessed was not more than five seconds, straight to the center of the cliff, and soon he was surrounded by darkness. Eventually, he stopped feeling how gravity dragged him deeper and how the air blew hard to his ears in his fall. His body was frozen in the air, but he could move. It was awkward, and he knew he must look stupid in the same position with the stomach down that he had been falling with, but he didn’t know how to accommodate his body, so he simply waited for the light that Taeil promised would come.

And it did arrive, but it didn’t come alone, after it, walking as if it were the mainland, there was a woman. Taeil didn’t mention anything about any woman, however, she walked confidently, smiling with kindness. Because of the darkness in that space, barely illuminated by Mark's blue blessing, he couldn’t appreciate her, but he noticed that she was short, no taller than himself, with a robe similar to Taeil's, with waist-length hair of some dark color that Mark couldn’t recognize if it was black or brown, and her face, blue by the light of the small flame that was aimed at Mark, was round and soft, with fine and pretty features. She wasn’t a model, she wasn’t a warrior, she was any average girl you would find at the train station. And maybe that was the most enigmatic thing about her; In this world, since Mark arrived, he had done nothing but take surprises. Everything was delicate and beautiful or hard and grotesque. Everything was so different that it hurt the eyes and the soul, so different that even the smell of the wet earth reminded him that this was not his world.

And yet, the girl who followed the flame was so well known that he drew a sigh of relief.

Mark held the blessing, as Taeil told him, and it was soft and warm. The girl smiled a little more, just a little bit of light escaping between Mark's fingers.

"Would you kill to save a life?" the girl asked. Mark hoped she could see his expression of bewilderment. "Help me, Mark, save me and save those guys."

"Miss, I don’t understand what you're talking about-"

"Kill the Emperor."

A giggle later, Mark held on tightly from the edge of the cliff, struggling not to fall again. Taeil helped him climb without problems and touched his shoulder again. Mark didn’t know where his blessing went, his hands empty.

"The blessing of electricity." announced Taeil, and without waiting he smiled at Renjun, who threw himself without any second thought.

Was she Neo? Did Taeil know what had happened? Did anyone else know?

Renjun returned two seconds later and no one mentioned the small conversation that took place down there, so Mark supposed he must have taken the same time as his friend.

Time passed different inside the cliff.

"The blessing of the souls," Taeil said, glancing curiously at Renjun, who stared back at him. "With which you can heal, hurt, rejuvenate, if you touch someone and on purpose you use your blessing you can steal their soul and use it as you please, that act causes immense pain and the death of the person. You can steal any soul from someone who has just died."

"The blessing of the forests," was Jisung's verdict. "which controls the plants, the earth and the metals."

"The blessing of appearance," he told Jaemin. "With it you can adopt the appearance of whoever you want and be able to have their skills and blessings for a while."

He looked at Chenle with even more curiosity before saying:

"A mermaid blessed you: you have the blessing of the mermaid. You can control whoever has a soul power weaker than yours with just a whisper, and Neo gives you the inanimate blessing, with which you can control any object with only your mind, and if you touch it, the power increases. "

The boys watched Taeil talk and explain the blessings with the same expression each time, until it was Jeno's turn, a gasp was caught in Taeil's throat, and he watched him with genuine surprise.

"To you, Jeno, was given the blessing of death, the oldest, most desired and dangerous blessing: any living being you touch will die, and that’s something you can’t avoid or control."

Jeno didn’t even blink. He nodded as if nothing and stuck his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt as he approached the boys back.

Jeno once told Mark that when he walked he didn’t like to hide his hands or keep them occupied with anything that was not a weapon in case he needed to fight suddenly. Mark told him that in the middle of the forest no one would want to fight him. Jeno told him it was something he got from of being a soldier and couldn't help doing.

The rest of the time they were there nobody saw him take his hands out of his pockets.

It was an aggressive blessing and Mark felt guilty because he convinced him to go. He was going to apologize, but Taeil was already calling Donghyuck.

"But the Gods don’t receive blessings." Hyuck explained, confused.

"Neo wants to give you a blessing."

So Hyuck received his blessing. The smile that Taeil gave him when explaining it was almost sad.

"A blessing of good luck, and a blessing of vitality, which you can only use three times either on yourself or on someone else. This blessing will make the life force stronger when you want it, allowing yourself or someone else to be at edge of death, but not fall in. The effect lasts a couple of days, however. "

"What? More life force?" Hyuck repeated, surprised that Neo wanted to give an immortal God more life.

For a moment Taeil's eyes turned gray, and Mark remembered Hyuck saying that the guardian could see the future.

"You're going to need the blessings, Donghyuck." he warned, with a voice as sad as his smile. It sounded more like a death sentence than an announcement of his blessings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i mean yeah it's cool, the dreamies have blessings but like,,,, they don't know how to use them lmao
> 
> anyways thanks for reading :D 
> 
> i'm writing a johnyong soulmate au but im not sure when i'll be able to finish it ;-; just in case any of you wanted to know what i've been stressing over lately
> 
> and i made more moodboards cause why not! now it's individual moodboards tho :D
> 
>  
> 
> [mark](https://twitter.com/jenosglow/status/1151388868127518725)  
> [donghyuck](https://twitter.com/jenosglow/status/1151388907298160642)  
> [jeno](https://twitter.com/jenosglow/status/1151388945474736133)


	9. 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Hi, I'm Mark Lee. I'm sorry that I arrived so suddenly, it's just that lately I've been seeing you a lot in my dreams. It's about you, me and five other boys and we are in a magical world in war and decay where vampires, angels, demons, mermaids and fairies exist and we tried to save that place called Neo with our magical powers that we obtained by throwing ourselves into a cliff and basically we became the only hope of all who live there and well, I did want to know if you also dream things like that because maybe it's not just dreams? Maybe they are memories and all that really happened? Anyway, have a good day, thanks, Jeno."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah it took me a while... again. Sorry. It's just that, well, i was accepted into college! :D i had induction courses and everything was crazy haha + my knowledge about chemistry is a bit rusty thus i gotta study so i don't go to my first class knowing like, nothing.
> 
> whatever enough about my biggest achievement till the date :') i'm going to be updating more or less every 5-6 days until my classes start.

Maybe he was crazy. Or so he believed until he went to one of Yukhei’s trainings and met Nakamoto Yuta, then he realized that maybe he wasn't that crazy.

He had the feeling of knowing Yuta, just as he had with Johnny at the time. He didn’t think about it and continued with his day until it was time to sleep and the first and only thing he dreamed of was of a picture stuck on a wooden floor, and when he took it there were Yuta and Johnny smiling at the camera with five other boys. Nct u.

If he had any doubt that his dreams were not just dreams that his mind invented, watching Yuta run from side to side on the court ended up killing them.

He needed to talk to Jeno. That was the only thing he could think of to check all those theories that were around his mind.

Of course, he wasn’t stupid and had done what anyone his age would do when he wants to know about someone else: he turned to social networks. Jeno didn't have any, which made some sense considering he was studying at a government academy for future assassins. Donghyuck didn't have either. Chenle had one he hadn’t used since 2010 when he was apparently a child singer in China. Jaemin and Renjun's accounts were inactive for two years and Jisung's was very active, the boy was dedicated to sharing memes and uploading videos of him dancing. He knew where to find the last one thanks to his videos; It was the same dance studio that Taeyong went to.

The thing was to find the other boys and be able to approach Jeno and Jisung without looking like a damn stalker. He definitely didn't want to bother Jeno and have him apply some key that he learned at the Academy or that Jisung called the police. The problem was that he couldn't think of a casual way of approaching. What was he supposed to say to Jeno? "Hi, I'm Mark Lee. I'm sorry that I arrived so suddenly, it's just that lately I've been seeing you a lot in my dreams. It's about you, me and five other boys and we are in a magical world in war and decay where vampires, angels, demons, mermaids and fairies exist and we tried to save that place called Neo with our magical powers that we obtained by throwing ourselves into a cliff and basically we became the only hope of all who live there and well, I did want to know if you also dream things like that because maybe it's not just dreams? Maybe they are memories and all that really happened? Anyway, have a good day, thanks, Jeno."

He denied to himself. That was horrible, for God's sake, if he said that and Jeno didn't call the police or his murderous friends, Mark himself would. He sighed, at least the atmosphere in that place was pleasant. He had returned to his and Yukhei's favorite cafeteria every day since he went there with his friend, who sometimes accompanied him and sometimes not because he had soccer practice after school. Mark didn't have a club so every day he went there without fail, unable to stay in his house any longer, where his father would look at him strangely and talk to him badly and his mother would go everywhere feeling sorry for him, crying as if Mark was still kidnapped and not there with them, and where Taeyong would be as perfect as ever. He didn't know why but he couldn't stand his brother's presence lately. He always loved him a lot, but now he felt angry with him, resentful, hurt, as if Taeyong had done something terrible that hurt him deeply. Of course, he didn't remember that Taeyong had ever done anything wrong, he was too good, too perfect to do something bad. And being in such a bad mood around his brother, knowing that he had no reason to justify that, only made him feel worse.

Anyway, if he went and met Jeno, what was he supposed to do? Ask him if they really met? Maybe yes. He would do that. It didn’t matter, Mark was sure that everything was a strange joke of life, and since apparently Neo was real and Donghyuck was dying, at least he would do something productive and try to return, at least for the funeral of the boy, who apparently was important in his life. He would ask Ten or any of the other Lords for answers, maybe he would recover his memory, which was what he needed most at that time, in order to finally be able to understand himself and everything he was going through.

His mind was a mess. It was always a bit like that. A mind full of anxiety and panic and problems and now also added amnesia and strange dreams. Luckily he was able to get out of his confusing and depressing thoughts and could stop stirring his fries from side to side when someone sat in front of him with a tray overflowing with food: two hamburgers with double meat, extra bacon and three cheeses, one giant order of fried chips, a jumbo-sized soda, a slice of chocolate cake and many, many honey candies. When he came out of stupor because— fuck, that was a lot of food, he looked at the owner of all that. The first thing he saw was a black jacket full of military insignia. Then Jeno's blank face. Suffering a panic attack and nerves internally he looked back at the food tray. Jeno's hands were on the table on each side of his banquet. He was struck by how red and swollen they seemed, full of scratches and bruises, in addition to cuts and bandits, a bandage completely covered the boy's right palm, leaving bare long, thin and crooked fingers, of that kind of deviation that remains after repeated bone breaks. Unattractive hands in sight. It seemed like it was hard to train at the Academy, huh.

"Mark," Jeno called harshly. “You shouldn't play with food that way. Leave the chips alone and eat them now.”

“Yah, Jeno, food isn't to be wasted. Instead of scolding me for playing with chips I'm going to eat, why don't you better wonder if you'll be able to eat all that you have on the plate?” He returned, irritated.

"Of course I'm going to eat all this, just look."

“All right. Go ahead, start with that indigestion.”

Jeno said no more and dedicated himself to eating his burgers with a frown. Mark imitated him when he ate his chips again. They were already a little watery but they were fine, they were still good.

It was when Jeno started his second hamburger and he leaned back in his seat to drink soda, already without chips, that he realized what had just happened: Jeno had simply reached Mark's table and sat as if he and Mark would have agreed to see themselves there as old friends who went to different schools. With the naturalness of two close and trustworthy people. It seemed that Jeno also realized that, if the way he hesitated to raise his burger indicated something. What should he say? What were they supposed to do when Jeno had finished eating? Would everyone go by their separate ways or they’d go to an arcade or something?

"Mark?" Called Jeno. “We have to find the others.

Well, Mark could start from there. He just had to pretend that nothing was as strange as it seemed and eventually there would be time to panic and over-analyze this conversation. However, curiously, he didn't feel that anything was so weird. He felt... in peace, as he hadn't felt for months. Almost as if it was his duty to have that conversation with Jeno and organize their return to Neo.

“Yeah, but I have no idea where to find Jaemin, Chenle or Renjun. And I'm not sure what the best way to approach Jisung would be.”

"I... I think I know where to find Renjun," Jeno commented, frowning. “I'm not so sure. I remember an address. That address was the only thing I remembered the day I woke up in the hospital.”

"How do you know that address is from Renjun?" Mark asked curiously.

"Because a voice sounds in my mind telling me to look for him there. _‘Even if you forget me, don't forget that address. Don't forget it, Jeno; King Street number 161, St. Roosewhale building CP. Remember it and come for me.’_ I promised that I wouldn’t forget even if Neo took my brain and put on a new one.”

And the weight of that promise made him remember. The fact that it was a promise he made to _Renjun_ meant that even when Jeno forgot everything that happened in Neo, he never forgot the address Renjun gave him.

“St. Roosewhale? That is the best arts academy in Korea.”

"Renjun is an artist. I think.”

“In a memory I saw him painting a mural in a couple of hours.”

It was still early, so they decided to go to the academy. It would be better if they finished with that matter of looking for the others soon, in addition to Mark feeling somewhat pressured, Donghyuck's voice ringing in his mind saying that he had a month to live. It had been two weeks.

He had tried not to give it much importance, after all, they were dreams, or so he believed. But now that he was walking with Jeno at his side in search of Renjun, now that he had seen the social networks of those boys that he thought were not real but that they definitely were, Mark couldn't stop thinking that the golden-eyed boy could die at any moment, if he had not already done so.

Lord Ten told Mark that he'd do everything possible to rescue Donghyuck, but Mark felt that Hyuck was still chained to the wall, being beaten on a daily basis by Sed. And he couldn't allow that. Although he wasn't sure how it could help him to go to Neo, but if his dreams/memories had taught Mark something, it was that nct dream had the power to do what they set out to do, and he was sure that with a little help from the lords, they could go for Haechan and prevent him from dying.

 

As one would expect from such an important school, the buildings were modern and huge, painted in hundreds of colors and with murals of all kinds. They approached the guard by the doors that only let students with credentials in.

“Excuse me,” Jeno called. The guard gave him a look from top to bottom and took a tablet.

"Do you come as visitors? Tell me your names to register.”

"Lee Jeno."

“Mark Lee.”

The man did a couple of things on the tablet and nodded sympathetically.

"Oh, you're listed as frequent visitors. Huang Renjun takes what you do within the institution as his responsibility, right?”

“Uh. Yes.”

They had no idea what he was talking about, but it seemed that if you were a frequent visitor, you had permission to pass without problems, and he mentioned Renjun's name, so they would just take the opportunity.

Arriving at the building wasn’t complicated, but it took a while: The school was huge and CP was on the other side of the institution. There was a closer entrance but they didn’t know and had to go through a lot of coffee shops, buildings and green areas until they could reach the famous CP building, which was, well, colorful. It had six floors and the walls seemed to retain all the colors of the world, all in the form of flowers and clouds and faces and it was nice. And big. And they didn't know how they were going to find Renjun in there.

"We just go and once there let's see what happens." Jeno resolved as if it wasn't a big deal.

"For a strategist, you are quite carefree."

"I'm not in the strategy section, hyung."

"Thank God you aren’t."

But yes, for lack of something better, they followed Jeno's plan and entered that world of color that was the CP building. There were hundreds of boys and girls from one place to another, all in their own affairs, but most carried hundreds of drawings and colors and paintings, and they had faces or clothes stained with pencil or chalk.

"Excuse me." Jeno kindly stopped a girl who was passing by and didn't seem in a hurry. “Do you know Huang Renjun? Do you know where we could find him?”

"Um, Huang Renjun? I think he's always on the floor of muralism. Fourth floor.” she explained. They thanked her and took the elevator.

Both boys were worried about what Renjun was going to say if he didn't remember them, or if he remembered them but didn't want to have anything to do with them or Neo, but none of that was necessary when just after taking a few steps outside the elevator, they ran into Renjun, who gave them a long look before running straight into Jeno's arms, which surprised him. Renjun buried his face in Jeno's chest and squeezed his waist with his thin arms, not caring about the backpack and sketchbooks he dropped. Mark noticed that Renjun was trembling slightly, and that he took a long breath, trying to calm down. Everyone looked at them trying to be discreet but they weren’t getting it, however Mark understood the curiosity: one of the boys in their school had run to hug a boy from the Academy as soon as he saw him, and he, instead of driving him away with a wrench or whatever, just received him and now stroked his back, with his chin resting on the artist's head.

Mark remembered now that those two, during their time in Neo, were a couple. Or something like that, he wasn't sure if they made it official.

"What took you so long?" Renjun complained, distorted by Jeno's sackcloth, where he kept burying his face. “I thought you would never come. I thought you forgot about me.”

"We're here, Junnie," Jeno said softly. “Sorry for being late.”

"Yes, _we_ are here. Jeno and me. Both of us,” Mark approached, annoyed. Renjun laughed slowly before separating from Jeno and smiling at Mark.

"We have to find the others and go for Haechannie, Mark," Renjun recalled after giving Mark a hug as well.

"We know where Jisung is but not Jaemin and Chenle," Jeno explained.

"I know where Jaemin is... but he doesn't want to cooperate," Renjun sighed, picking up his things and leading the way outside the building. With a stern look he made everyone get into their affairs and stop watching them as a circus exhibit.

“What do you mean with that?”

"That he doesn't want to go back to Neo."

"Well, we can't force him," Mark said.

"But we need him."

"I think Jisung could convince him. I have the impression that Jisung had influence on Jaemin.”

"Assuming Jisung listens to us."

"And still Chenle is missing and we still don't know how to get back to Neo."

"One thing at a time," Mark said. “First let's go for Jisung, okay?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> renjun my best boi is finally here and soon the rest of the gang will be as well, hyuck's condition is unknown, jaemin doesn't want to cooperate, chenle is god knows where, nct u is around but only mark knows and everything gets messier with every minute that passes :) we're having fun aren't we? lol
> 
> something i've been wanting to clarify (and im going to put in the first chapter) is the ages of the dreamies:
> 
> when arrived to Neo:  
> °mark, jeno, renjun and jaemin → 16 (now 18)  
> °jisung and chenle → 15 (now 17)
> 
> apart from that, everything is almost the same (except for hyuck obviously), mark is the oldest and jisung the youngest.
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and commenting ❤
> 
> (renjun's moodboard):
> 
>  
> 
> [renjun](https://twitter.com/jenosglow/status/1154462397949628421)


	10. not about angels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Your blessing was made to kill. You, however, have been able to use it to help me with my pain." he explained. "Renjun, you used something meant to hurt to heal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! here's the new chapter, enjoy
> 
> this chapter is like jisung's, only that this time the protagonist is renjun! (we could say there's a little "pattern" in all this chapters where mark doesn't narrate them. can you guess which? *emoji of eyes*)
> 
> TW// blood. oh boi there's a lot of blood.

He walked down the streets of the village near the forest where he lived with the other six boys, grumbling. They hadn't even known each other for a month and they already sent him all the time. Why did they always send him for bread? Why was it always him? Renjun hated to go for bread, the woman who sold it made him feel uncomfortable with so much flirtation. Yes, she gave him several pieces of bread for free, and with their current economic situation that was magnificent, but... Well, he could understand why they sent him.

Donghyuck told them that if the Emperor's guard saw too many new people they would suspect and they didn’t want to be questioned, so they went to town in small groups or in some cases like Renjun's, alone. And the money with which they bought things was the money Jisung earned by selling some natural remedies typical of the Earth in the local market.

He passed through one of the busiest streets in the village, staring at the ground with a pout, in a bad mood. He was too distracted in his thoughts and complaints that he didn’t notice the person in front of him, causing them to collide. He looked up, annoyed and willing to scold him even when it was his fault for going without paying attention to the road (he was in a bad mood, okay?), but he noticed something that made the complaint die in his throat: the clothes of the person was a bulky and shimmering tunic with wide sleeves and small and thin pale blue designs, it looked like traditional clothing of ancient Chinese, with a girdle of a slightly darker blue but still clear, from his waist hung a sword in a sheath which combined with his clothes, and what most caught his attention was the thick white bandage that completely covered the person's eyes, with the long edges falling down the back of his head and moving with the wind. The boy was handsome, at least what Renjun could see, which was his thin nose, his kind smile with thick, red lips and his defined jaw. In contrast to his clothes, the man's hair and eyebrows were dark, completely black.

Renjun had hit a blind man, to whom he had thrown the bamboo stick that seemed to be what made of his walking stick, which was now on the ground at the feet of the man. To make him feel worse, he remembered how he almost shouted at him to notice where he was going, even when it was him who paid no attention to his path. To add more guilt, the blind boy didn't even seem upset, smiling with kindness and patience!

In a hurry, he picked up the stick and took the man's hand, returning it, while apologizing. You could tell he was older than Renjun, so he apologized even more formally.

"Sorry! I wasn't paying attention to the road and I bumped into you, I'm sorry!"

The man nodded without losing his smile, taking the stick that Renjun returned.

"It’s okay, don't worry." the man reassured, with a voice full of calm and kindness, a relaxing voice, even. "You're fine?"

"Yes, yes. I'm fine. Are you all right? Excuse me for hitting you."

"I'm fine." He assured laughing. "Hey, calm down, it was nothing."

"Anyway, sorry."

"Just pay attention to the road from now on, okay? It wouldn't be good if you bump into someone else or something and this time you fell to the ground and hurt yourself."

"Of course." He bowed and instantly felt even more stupid; A blind man wouldn’t see him bow. "Is there anything I can help you with? It's the least I can do by getting in your way."

The man didn’t stop smiling, but didn’t respond instantly. His smile became a little more discreet but no less sincere, Renjun noted.

"If it's not too much trouble, I could use some help in the market. People tend to sell me things of not so good quality because I can't see." Answered.

"I will help you!" He responded enthusiastically.

....

 

And so, naturally, a routine was established. Renjun spent a few hours in the morning with the blind man, helping him with his purchases, more than anything. Sometimes he helped him get to places and sometimes they just chatted in the park under the shade of the most leafy tree Renjun could find.

The man was called Sicheng and he was an angel. Hyuck had explained to them about Neo's original races, so Renjun didn't need more to understand Sicheng.

You could say they were close, somehow. Renjun was excited to see him every morning because Sicheng told him about his adventures and about Neo's stories, which he then repeated to his friends in the cabin. Many of those stories were not even known by Donghyuck, so everyone could be excited by hearing them together for the first time.

....

 

"In my kingdom, I usually train new recruits in the military school of magic." Sicheng told him one day, while they both walked through the market, looking for radishes for a soup that the angel wanted to prepare.

"You know about blessings too, right?" Renjun asked.

"I know more than others, but I don't know everything," he explained. "It's impossible to know everything about all the blessings. Did you know that there is no more than one person with each blessing of manipulation? "

"I don't know what the blessings of manipulation are."

"There are different types of blessings. The most common are those of manipulation and fortune. An example of the first is the blessing that allows to control the wind, and an example of the second is the blessings of luck. There may be many blessings of fortune. Thousands, even, but only one of manipulation of every kind."

Renjun led Sicheng to a stand where they sold the vegetables they were looking for.

"You know about blessings." Renjun pointed out. Sicheng laughed softly.

Over time, he noticed that Sicheng was perhaps even more independent than himself. Something obvious considering he was a traveler. But he was also surprised by how Sicheng noticed when there were things or people nearby and went out of their way without work and without a walking stick. It was as if Sicheng saw, but he definitely didn’t. And seeing him gracefully dodge a box of tomatoes made him wonder why that day they met Sicheng allowed Renjun to hit him and why he used a bamboo as a walking stick if he didn't need it.

"I told you that I know one thing or two, but not everything."

"Maybe you could teach me and my friends," Renjun snorted as he remembered how Jeno had killed three trees near the cabin that fell dangerously close and how Jaemin transformed into Chenle for two whole days without knowing how to reverse it and ended up crying. "We are a mess."

"I would love to."

...

 

"Would you believe me if I told you that I am the Lord of the angels?"

"Of course, why not?" Renjun shrugged.

"Doesn't it seem strange to you that the Lord is traveling everywhere, staying shortly as a nomad?"

"Nah, I was never very interested in politics. Everyone does what they want, Lord."

...

 

Sicheng gave him the address of the hostel where he stayed during his stay in that town, because as the traveler he was he didn’t have a fixed home. Renjun almost always looked for him in his room when he was early (there were no clocks, okay? It was difficult to calculate what time he should leave home to arrive at a decent hour to the park where they saw each other). Anyway, he was sure that that day he hadn’t been there early. It was late, actually, and Sicheng wasn’t arriving, so he decided to look for him.

He entered the hostel without problems and knocked on the door of Sicheng's room, but received no response.

"Sicheng?" he called. No answer one more time. "Are you there?"

This time there was a small noise of something falling to the ground, and then a "Renjun...", but what altered the teenager and what made him open the door without waiting for permission, was how tired and weak the voice of Sicheng sounded.

The first thing he noticed and smelled was blood. Blood everywhere. And in the center of the room, with the legs and hips wrapped in a white sheet and stained with red, was Sicheng, who turned to where Renjun was, and a gasp stuck in the teenager’s throat; He didn’t have the bandage, Sicheng didn’t have the bandage, exposing his eyes, shaped in such a beautiful way and with an almost white iris, with blood gushing from them and falling down his cheeks like waterfalls that flowed into his lap. The next most impressive thing after his eyes were his wings: with nothing covering his back, the great angel wings were fully exposed, hanging languidly. The white of these was bright and with fluffy feathers... but some were falling, leaving in their space more blood that dirtied the rest of white.

That must have been the image of a fallen angel that was talked about so much on Earth: beautiful and full of pain and blood.

A groan of pain escaped from the depths of Sicheng's throat and more blood came from his eyes like tears. The angel shrugged in himself, bringing his hands to his eyes and letting out a sob. His whole body trembled and he returned to his original position, with his face out of Renjun's sight, but he could see how the pool of blood in which the older one was sitting grew more and more. Sicheng was trying to clean the blood from his cheeks, but with his hands draining the red liquid, he wasn't getting very far.

He approached and took a small towel in his path. He knelt in front of his friend, swallowing his nausea when he felt his pants soaking in the blood that was still warm. He took Sicheng's wrists and removed them from his eyes, cleaning gently the blood from his face. The unfocused white eyes were set right on Renjun, and he would lie if he said that it didn't cause him an unpleasant chill and cold sweat on his back; They were so empty and their color was sickly. Maybe they could be beautiful eyes if it weren't because they cried blood and caused immense pain to their owner.

It felt unreal, being there helping a true angel. Renjun dried the red tears of an angel who lost feathers and writhed in pain. An angel he was a friends with and which he met by mistake.

When Sicheng began to move his head, apparently without locating Renjun, the boy took the angel's face in his hands and ignored all his own discomforts to tell him, with a firm voice and white magic coming out of his palms straight to Sicheng's face:

"I don't know anything about angels. If there is something I can do to help you, I need you to tell me."

Did that count as the first time he used his magic to heal?

 

 

"You have a gift to heal." Sicheng murmured, already blindfolded and lying in bed. Renjun, sitting by his feet, looked at him without understanding.

"I'm sure Taeil said my blessing is that of souls."

Sicheng smiled.

"Your blessing was made to kill. You, however, have been able to use it to help me with my pain." he explained. "Renjun, you used something meant to hurt to heal."

....

 

Mark watched Sicheng approach the cabin with Renjun. He was never interested in things like religion or spirituality, he never imagined what an angel would look like. But seeing Sicheng wearing a bright smile, with his eyes bandaged and in his neat fluffy robe, Mark was sure that exactly this was how the angels should look, even without the wings, the white halo was the only thing missing, and he knew that if he concentrated enough, he could see it.

"You have the same aura as your brother." Sicheng told Donghyuck when they introduced themselves. Hyuck's smile was stiff at the mention of his brother. No one asked, so Sicheng kept talking: "Jisung? Here." He gave him the old book he brought, and Jisung received it with curiosity. "Renjun told me that you like plants. That book is very useful for that; it has information about all the plants you want, and collects by itself the information of the plants that it lacks when it is near them, so even if you just walk through the forest with the book, it is working. You can shrink it with your magic and keep it in your pocket, also, as you gain its trust and know how to use it better, the book will help you on its own: If you want the information of a specific plant, just open any page and there it will be, without searching. The same for a particular symptom or feature. As I said, useful." He nodded to himself. "Someone gave it to me, but I'm blind, I can't read."

"I... Thank you, sir." Jisung said, blinking incredulously at the book in his hands. Sicheng clapped once to get the attention of teenagers, that were distracted with the magic book.

"Okay, so, shall we start? I just want to warn you that I am a fearsome coach." and chuckled.

Ah, they had no idea what was coming up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh before i forget: the next chapter is... eventful, to say the least. careful with that one :)
> 
> but whatever you know? that's a problem for future us so for now what do you think so far? we met sicheng, the lord of the angels. he was already mentioned by jungkook before, remember his story? he was good friends with hyuck's brother but hyuck doesn't seem very happy at the mention of jaehyun hehe
> 
> as always, thanks for reading ♥
> 
> today i don't have a moodboard, but i have my twt ajkd lets be friends! i don't have anyone to talk about nct and fanfics ;-; by the way, you see there's like 1000 fic fests starting? i'm participating in almost all of them lol 
> 
>  
> 
> [my twt](https://twitter.com/jenosglow)


	11. 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He paused a second to think about his answer. True, they didn't even remember much of what had happened in that world of magic, but of course they wanted to return. Why? hero complex, maybe. However, Mark knew that it was much more than that: they had seen everything that happened at Neo, they lived it first hand, they saw it right in front of them, all the people in misery, sunk in violence, despair and sadness. And they had seen that there was a cure for it: to overthrow the Emperor. At first it was a moral question: how to let bad things happen when they could stop them? But as time passed and they met more people, as they traveled and experienced the wonders of that world, as they gradually fell in love with this magnificent land, genuine desire to do good was born. To do something to help this place so helpless that it had long lost hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember when in chapter 4 i said that there was gonna be a big and unpleasant surprise? i was talking about this

"All right." Jisung agreed, sitting on the bench and still eating his melon ice cream.

“All right?” Renjun repeated incredulously.

“Yes. Okay.” Jisung repeated, without interest.

“And that's it? That easy are you going to accept to come with us to a world at war when literally two minutes ago your mother called you to remind you to look at both sides of the street before crossing because it is dangerous?”

"I went to Neo once and here I am, right? Enjoying an ice cream after a good dance practice, living my best life bro.” He shrugged casually.”

"The new generations are crazy." Mark murmured.

"Whatever, old man, where is Jaemin?”

"He refuses to come to Neo or even talk to us."

“Mm. His loss, isn't it? When do we go? Because I have a recital tomorrow at seven.”

"Jisung, we don't know how to go back, and we can't just leave without Jaemin and—!"

"Ugh, so what are you doing here? Do you want me to find a way to return or something? To be this old, you aren’t very self-sufficient, hyungs.”

"Listen, little brat." Jeno began irritably, but Renjun stopped him:

"Jaemin knows how to go back but he didn't want to tell me."

“I see. Very rude of him.” Jisung nodded.

"But we're sure you could get him to tell us and also come with us."

"And why do you believe that?"

"Because he likes you."

"He likes me?"

"As far as we can remember, yes, a lot."

"I'm glad to hear it, but, uh, I don't think I can convince him." he admitted, finally looking otherwise than unconcerned and insolent. Now he was... nervous.

"And why don't you think you can?"

"Well, compared to you, I don’t remember that much, but I remember what Jaemin hyung looks like and ah... I don't know, he’s cute. I have problems communicating with people who are cute.”

"You don't seem to have trouble talking to us." Mark said, like a fool. Jisung smiled wickedly.

"You aren’t cute. Jaemin, on the other hand.” he sighed dreamily.

"Are you saying, in short, that your stupid crush in Jaemin is going to make you nervous and that's why it's going to cost you to talk to him?"

"Yes, basically."

"Jisung Park, I swear, I'm going to kill you now!"

"We need you to try, however." Mark asked. “Listen, Renjun managed to convince Jaemin to go out with us tomorrow, but he said he was firm in his decision. I'm thinking of bringing him to your recital to see you and to remember what made him fight so hard for Neo and then, maybe, you can talk to him.

"Wait, fight so hard for Neo?" Jisung repeated confused. “What does that have to do with me?”

Renjun smiled.

"He was fighting for the peace and freedom of Neo because it was in Neo where you were living at that time. Anything that happened in Neo would affect you, of course. So he fought for what was best for the country and consequently for you, and that was for the Emperor to die.”

“Oh.”

Jeno laughed, delighted to see the irreverent Jisung finally speechless in this whole conversation.

“So? Can we bring Jaemin tomorrow?”

“... Yes.”

......

 

Jeno and Mark had been waiting for a while when Jaemin and Renjun arrived. Jaemin looked at them a little suspicious, but still followed Renjun to Mark and Jeno, who greeted the boy with a big smile.

"Oh, no more pink hair?" Asked Mark, reminding Jaemin of his dreams with cotton candy hair.

“Nah. And you no more brown?” Jaemin returned playfully, pointing to Mark's now black hair.

They were all different from how Mark saw them in his dreams. Strangely, they seemed more tired, more worn, thinner. Renjun had left his caramel hair and was now dark brown, Jeno now had black and shorter hair than before. Jisung stopped being blond and was now brown. He wondered if Chenle still had green hair, surely not.

They walked to the small theater where Jisung and his dance group would perform, and Mark could see in the distance his parents sitting near the stage. He made sure they sat away from them but with a good view of where the dancers would be. Taeyong, being in the same dance group as Jisung, would also be performing and of course his parents were there.

When during dinner he told them that he would attend the presentation but that he wouldn’t go with them but with his friends, the three looked at him strangely. Perhaps because since he returned he hadn’t left much, or perhaps because from the beginning he never went out with his friends, and less to things like dance events.

They sat down and soon Jeno and Renjun disappeared with the promise of returning with sweets and snacks with them, leaving Mark and Jaemin alone with the noise of other people's conversations and laughter covering the silence.

"How are you doing with being a composer, Mark?" strangely, Jaemin was the one who started the conversation.

"Good, I guess. I haven't written anything too important, but I managed to sell some songs recently” he shrugged. “I was offered to work in a company as an apprentice, but I don't think I will take it; It is a lot of work and no experience, they would only make me buy me coffee for them and make copies for almost no salary.”

“Cheer up. I know that one day you will be the best composer in all of Asia.” he said, confident. Mark laughed.

"Excited to see Jisung?"

Jaemin stirred nervously but nodded.

"Do you think he’ll be glad to see me? Will he remember me? I don't know what I'm going to do if he doesn’t remember me. It's going to be so awkward.” he whined.

“Oh don’t worry. He reminds you and is happy to see you.”

"Is he going back to Neo with you?" He asked weakly.

Mark sighed.

“It seems like he is.”

“I imagined he’d be. Jisung always does stupid things, doesn't he?” He didn't sound annoyed. At most a little resigned.”

"It's stupid to go back to Neo." Mark admitted.

"Then why do you insist so much on returning, Mark? If you know, why do you all want to go so badly?”

He paused a second to think about his answer. True, they didn't even remember much of what had happened in that world of magic, but of course they wanted to return. Why? hero complex, maybe. However, Mark knew that it was much more than that: they had seen everything that happened at Neo, they lived it first hand, they saw it right in front of them, all the people in misery, sunk in violence, despair and sadness. And they had seen that there was a cure for it: to overthrow the Emperor. At first it was a moral question: how to let bad things happen when they could stop them? But as time passed and they met more people, as they traveled and experienced the wonders of that world, as they gradually fell in love with this magnificent land, genuine desire to do good was born. To do something to help this place so helpless that it had long lost hope.

And there were more reasons, of course. Donghyuck was one of them.

But he only replied:

"We can't let horrible things happen when we have the power to stop them."

At that Jaemin said nothing and Mark also didn’t try to continue talking. Not long after Jeno and Renjun returned with the promised snacks, the show started on time.

Mark was immersed in the dances of the boys and girls. They had talent. Everything was interesting; colorful dances and lively music and melancholic dances of slow music. Time passed quickly and soon Taeyong and his group emerged form backstage. Of course, he made it great, as you would expect from someone as good at dance as he. He even had his solo.

There was a short break of five minutes and the next number after that was Jisung and his dance group. Mark didn’t recognize the song they were dancing but it was calm, however the movements were sharp and rough, but occasionally they became soft. At a particularly emotional moment in the song, Jisung had a solo. Mark only looked away from the young man on stage for a second to appreciate Jaemin's reaction: his eyes were shining, and he doubted it was because of the lighting. He watched Jisung with such longing, pride and emotion as if it were the first time, as if he was discovering the greatest secret in the world.

"You know, in Neo they have these delicious fruits that look like mangoes and that you love," Mark murmured in Jaemin's ear, who looked at him with a grin. Mark smiled. “I was thinking that maybe we could buy some when we return.”

“When _we_ return?” Jaemin repeated skeptically.

"Oh, right, you're not coming back. Forget this-“

"In fact, I'd love to buy those fruits as soon as we get to Neo."

The three smiled discreetly at the words of their friend.

....

 

Seeing Jisung and Jaemin interact was so awkward that it was even painful. It was a disaster, Jaemin had wanted to hug him as a congratulation for his wonderful presentation but Jisung offered his hand at the same time. Then Jaemin wanted to shake his hand but Jisung already had his arms open for the hug. They ended up standing in front of each other, clumsy and without hug or handshake, they didn't even look each other in the eye.

“Jisung—“

“Jaemin—“

They talked at the same time, interrupting the other. Mark, Jeno and Renjun watched the babbling exchange of "you say it first" with practically disgust.

“Okay! Jisung, you did great. Jaemin, you're a mess, really. Are we leaving now?” Renjun interrupted, almost throwing the bouquet of flowers that everyone bought in front of Jisung.

"Mark," he was called from behind, and when he turned around he found his parents and Taeyong looking curiously at his friends.

"Will you come home?" Asked his mother kindly.

An arm circled his shoulders and before he could respond, Jaemin, beside him, smiled:

"Mrs. Lee, nice to meet you. I know you want to spend time with your son, but we were really looking forward to eating pizza after this. If it doesn't bother you, would you lend us Mark a couple of hours? Just a while, I swear.”

He was wearing that smile that made everyone fall at his feet, the perfect and handsome prince's smile that melted everyone without exception... well, maybe the dreamies were an exception, but Mark's mother definitely wasn't. It even seemed that his father was falling a little for Jaemin.

“Sure, of course!” His mother chuckled, and Jaemin's smile shone a little more. “Mark, how handsome and polite your friends are.”

“Eh yes.”

"Bah, it's not that much," Jaemin laughed shyly. Mark saw Jaemin's blush strangely. Why was he acting like this?

Mark might not remember much, but he remembered perfectly that Jaemin was a snake who knew how to act. He acted great. And again, he might not remember, but he recognized that Jaemin was putting on a mask, that nice facet was one of his many characters that he could play without further ado. What he did not understand was why Jaemin felt the need to bring to the surface one of his many false personalities.

"We'll see you at home, Mark," Taeyong said happily.

"You don't need to arrive early," his mother added.

“Oh!” Jaemin exclaimed. “Taeyong, right? On behalf of all of us, you did great. Seriously, I've never seen so much talent. A show totally enjoyed, thanks.”

Taeyong was surprised at the compliment, but thanked shyly and shortly afterwards the Lee family left, and with them Jaemin's smile left too, leaving only a grim and serious face.

"Mark," Jaemin called. “I guess you don't remember what your brother did?”

“Uh? My brother? What are you talking about?”

Jaemin looked at him blankly.

“He is a member of the Looters, an organization that is dedicated to destroying worlds and dimensions in exchange for a payment. Your father is the president of the company. They work for the Emperor, and Taeyong is called the shinigami because of the amount of people he has killed.” He swallowed before continuing. “Your brother is the Emperor's favorite assassin, Mark. And he showed his loyalty by trying to kill you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)
> 
>  
> 
> [jaemin](https://twitter.com/jenosglow/status/1157876273789710336)  
> [jisung](https://twitter.com/jenosglow/status/1157876283881263105)


	12. simon says

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark responded to the attack as if it wasn't Taeyong who launched it. He responded as if he were one of his enemies. From that moment, he probably was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i...... bruh college is harder than i thought
> 
> TW// violence and some blood

Mark felt that something would go wrong since he woke up that day. He commented and the solution was to send Ten with them.

They had a mission: to go to one of the Emperor's barracks and connect a device that would let Jaemin extract a couple of files they needed. Chenle, who was fast and agile, would be in charge of connecting the device, and Mark would go to cover him and look out while the boy worked. Jaemin would hack the cameras and watch them from Ten's palace, who would go with them in case Mark's feeling came true.

Everything was going according to plan. Some guards were found but quickly neutralized, and Chenle was already waiting for the device to finish its job. Ten and Mark were waiting for Chenle when out of nowhere, around the corner of the hall, the Emperor and Taeyong, Mark's older brother, appeared. Taeyong was as surprised to see Mark as Mark was to see him. However, he wasn’t the one who spat the other's name with shock:

"Taeyong?" Ten exclaimed, shocked.

“Um, Ten, do you know my brother?”

“Your brother?”

"Mark...?" Are you NCT Dream’s Mark?” Asked Taeyong, with a gasp.

“Yeah. Hyung, what the hell are you doing with the Emperor? What do you do in Neo?”

"What a wonderful meeting," the Emperor said, with a smile. “My dear Mark, your brother and Ten know each other because Taeyong got in the dreams of this demon present here. They formed a nice bond, right? Well, Ten formed it, the truth is that Taeyong just wanted to get information.”

At those words, and seeing that Taeyong didn’t deny them, Ten let out a shaky breath, which didn’t go unnoticed.

This dimension was alive. This world, Neo, had a mind of its own and was a living being. It was a magical place, and magic is not governed by conventional rules or principles; she let humans enter and wander in it for a limited time, and eventually she threw them out with no memory.

Doyoung once told him that there were fissures through which beings of other dimensions could enter Neo, but that all the fissures led to them, the Lords. That was how humans began writing about vampires, werewolves, mermaids. Because when they slept, their conscience traveled through a fissure and ended up in the dreams of the Lords, where they returned them to their dimension without much trouble, and humans believed that they had simply had a strange dream.

Why Ten let Taeyong wander through his dreams more than once was unknown to Mark.

“Mm? Did you think it was serious, Ten? Did you think that Taeyong was just a human who ended up getting into your dreams randomly and wanted to meet you? Oh, oh don't tell me you fell in love?” He burst out laughing. “To be so old, I would expect more from you. A pretty face, some words that are false, and you fall.”

"Mark," Taeyong interrupted, not even acknowledging Ten's presence. “What do you think you’re doing? Come back to Earth with me right now.”

“No. Hyung, what are _you_ doing? Do you know who that man next to you is?”

“He's my boss. And dad's. He hired our agency to help in Neo.”

"The Looters," Ten said blankly. “You work for the Looters, right?”

“Yes, I do.”

"It's a company that is dedicated to destroying dimensions," Ten explained to Mark.

"But this time we are trying to help," Taeyong corrected. “That’s why we are working for the Emperor.”

Maybe it was the shock. Mark hoped it was shock, because he really wouldn't like to feel this indifferent about the idea of tearing Taeyong's head off for daring to say that what the Emperor did to that country was the right thing to do.

"I don't think you know what you're talking about, Taeyong," Ten murmured.

"Too much talk. Taeyong, as you know, is Mark who leads the troublemakers who ruin my perfect reign. Take care of him.”

“Yes sir.”

Mark responded to the attack as if it wasn't Taeyong who launched it. He responded as if he were one of his enemies. From that moment, he probably was.

In the midst of all that, the only thing that could go through Mark's mind and that he managed to process was that things change a lot. Taeyong, his older brother, his inspiration and idol, one of the people he trusted most and whom he missed most since he came to this dimension, that Taeyong, was trying to kill Mark as if he were his worst enemy. He wasn't having showing mercy, but to be fair, Mark wasn't either.

He wondered for a moment if fighting like this with his only brother was worth it for a world he didn't even know existed until recently. However, the answer came to him with simplicity: Yes. It was worth it.

The Emperor was nowhere to be seen at this point and Ten was fighting on his own with the guards who were becoming more and more.

Taeyong seemed confident in helping the Emperor, and Mark couldn't imagine why: Taeyong was always a great person, the best of all. Friendly, reliable, shy, cheerful, full of desire to do the things right and help. Taking the Emperor’s side was not helping, and that is why Mark wondered if his brother was really aware of what he was doing. Then he remembered that his father was also involved in that, and that was enough fuel to get Taeyong out of the way with a punch in the nose when Chenle came running and without stopping for a second he told them it was time to leave. He gave Taeyong one last, cold look before leaving with Ten and Chenle. Or he could have left had it not been because Taeyong stabbed him. He hadn't done so much damage thanks to the potion he took before he left, which Renjun designed with Jisung's help to avoid fatal injuries. But even so, the elder had buried a dagger in Mark's side and it hurt like hell. Blood didn’t flow as much as it usually would without the potion, but in a slow and steady manner, Mark's clothes began to stain.

Mark looked at his brother with his eyes wide open, unable to believe that Taeyong was really trying to kill him. Yeah, Mark was hitting him hard, but from that to seriously wanting to kill him...

For a second, his brother's eyes became sad, showing some regret, but just as those emotions arrived, they left. Mark could understand, to some extent, Tae's actions; he would do the same if his brother were the Emperor for the simple fact that the Emperor was the leader of all this horrible movement that wanted to end Neo. In the same way, Mark was the leader of the movement that wanted to save Neo. Mark was as fundamental as the Emperor was: you end up with one of them and the entire structure on his side was going to destabilize.

Gathering the strength he had left and trying to overcome the unpleasant feeling in his chest because of this situation, Mark jumped away from Taeyong and released an electric shock strong enough to leave him on the ground for a while, and then he continued to follow Chenle and Ten out of the place.

In the background, shouts and sirens were heard, orders to stop them, but of course they didn’t succeed. The three of them managed to leave just in time.

"I left my guard down in those dreams," Ten complained, in a sore expression, once they reached his palace, while Renjun treated Mark's wound.

"It's hard not to let your guard down when it comes to Taeyong," he explained. “Ten... did you really fall in love with him?”

The lack of response was enough to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok well IM SO SORRY it took me this long to post a new chapter ;-; i really didn't think i'd be so tired so soon, but i guess all those jokes about being an engineering student without time for anything were true rip
> 
> anyways thank you so much for reading yall the best <3
> 
> btw i wrote a johnyong band/idol soulmate au + enemies to lovers, go check it out! :D
> 
> love ya, im sorry it took me this long and i'll try to post again soon uwu


	13. 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Find me before I die, Mark.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> irl jeno is my baby, thus, is only normal that he is also my baby in my fanfic. jeno is babie, people. pls love him he's a good soldier and an even better boy and friend

Naturally, he stopped spending time at home and started going out more.

He still didn’t come to terms with his feelings about how to react to the fact that his brother and father were terrible people and that Taeyong tried to kill him. It was discouraging, that was the only thing that was clear to him.

Taeyong was still so perfect, and Mark couldn't understand how someone so kind, so cheerful, could do such terrible things. Jaemin had told him that Tae had killed countless people, and from what he could see in his dream, he didn't doubt it. If he tried to kill him, his own brother, he didn't doubt that he was trying to kill other people. And all in the name of the Emperor, for God's sake.

They noticed his strange behavior at home, and his mother looked at him with even more concern. Mark wondered if she knew about her husband and eldest son. Taeyong asked him, worried, if everything was fine or if he needed help with something. Mark restrained himself to not hit his nose. His father was as cold as ever, which was convenient for Mark because he didn't even have to try to avoid him.

He spent time in coffee shops, school or at Jisung’s, Renjun’s or Jaemin's place, with the rest of the boys. They were busy planning their return to Neo but there were difficulties: they lacked materials to open the portal and didn’t know how to find Chenle. They couldn't just leave without even asking Chenle if he wanted to go.

Jaemin told them that they needed certain materials to be able to open a direct portal to their cabin in Neo: diamond, ruby, sapphire, emerald, opal, topaz and golden quartz. That, combined with a hair of at least six of the seven members of nct dream, some plants of which he recited the name and that Mark didn’t know what they were but to which Jisung nodded with understanding, some rare powders and spit of toad. He wasn't sure how to prepare the potion, however, and that's why Jisung had been sleeping lately, wherever they were, trying to get to the dream where he learned how to prepare the potion, because that was his role in dream, creating potions, so as Renjun was the doctor and Jaemin was in charge of technology and machines.

Now, for starters, without Chenle they would only have five of the six hairs required. They didn't worry about the toad spit because Jisung, full of calm, told them that this was the easiest thing to get from the potion, and that he knew where to look for the plants. The real problem, then, was finding Chenle and getting all those rare and expensive stones. Not even gathering all the money of the five they could buy more than one thing out of the seven they needed.

Things were getting more complicated than expected.

"His facebook page says he is in China." Jisung commented.

"We know that," Jeno said. "It's the only thing we know."

It was agreed that the meeting that day would be held in a park near Renjun's school, and there were the five of them, trying to decipher the next move.

"It doesn't matter that his Facebook says that five years ago he was in China when we don't know if he's still there and it's not like we can just go on a weekend and that's it."

Normally this was how they ended the conversation, none knowing what to do because they had no money to go to China or to buy the stones. Jisung reminded them that he could get the plants anytime they wanted and they thanked him.

Jisung was about to say his sentence when a very striking car was parked near where they were: gleaming black and more expensive than the houses of all together, including the Academy where Jeno lived, and that was a giant building. Two men in dark suits came down from the vehicle, wearing sunglasses, tall muscular and intimidating, with communicators in their ears and watches on their wrists. One of them looked at the dreamies and pointed at them. The other nodded and began to approach.

Meanwhile, the boys watched all that, not knowing what was happening. Was that the moment they ran and shouted for help because they were going to be kidnapped by a couple of gangsters? Did they call the police?

The guys stood right in front of the dreamies, who were watching them from the floor where they were sitting in a circle.

"What? Did y’all lose something?" Renjun growled, annoyed that one of the subjects was covering him from the sun that he so wanted to feel on his skin.

Mark had the feeling that more than once they got into serious trouble thanks to Renjun's explosive humor and his obsession with getting everyone in trouble because of his big mouth. Waiting for the best, after giving his friend a hard look, he turned to the men and gave them a great and kind smile.

"Ignore him, he hasn't eaten." He resolved. "Something happens?"

"NCT dream, right?" asked one.

He could practically feel Jaemin looking for a way to get them out of there, away from those two men; it wasn't normal for them to know about NCT dream, that name only existed in Neo. There was no reason for them to know unless someone from Neo had told them, and if the last thing they found out, which was that the Lords couldn't find them, was still a reality, then the only other person willing to take all the trouble of the world to find them and send people after them to Earth was the Emperor.

"We don't know what that name means, don't get upset," said the guy who seemed the friendliest of the two. A smile would have helped not to disturb the boys more, however. "We work for Mr. Zhong Chenle, he asked us to search for the five or you."

"Hm. And how do we know if that's true?" Jeno questioned, even when Jisung was already sighing relieved that Chenle had found them.

"He said we should mention Jeno's birthday camp."

That was something that indeed only they could know, because they made sure to do it between them and in secret: Jeno had told them that it wasn’t normal to celebrate birthdays at the Academy, since those days were considered like any other day. That seemed to be sad and a tragedy to the rest of the dreamies, even when Jeno said it didn't matter, so they decided to organize a small celebration when Jeno's birthday came in their second year in Neo, and not caring that they were halfway through leading a revolution, they took two days to pretend to be normal teenagers going camping. Without powers, without magic, without evil Emperors who wanted to kill them and without millenary Lords.

They had a good time, mostly wasting time fishing and organizing typical camping games. They even managed to bake a cake in Doyoung's palace and take it to the place where they were camping successfully, they wished Jeno a happy birthday and everything was quiet and pleasant, pure laughs and conversations... until there was an explosion in a relatively close town and they had to run to help, but overall it was a great day.

"Okay, you work for Chenle, and now what?"

"If possible, we want to take you to the young Zhong, because he has expressed his desire to see you all if we found you."

"Well, let's say you two work for Chenle, yes?" Renjun started. "But we still can't just get in the car with you and let you take us wherever you want. You're strangers, and even kids aren't dumb enough to go with someone they don't know."

The guy on the right, the most intimidating, was blond and short-tempered, if the way he clenched his jaw annoyingly at what Renjun said indicated something. The other, on the other hand, was a redhead and seemed to be more patient, as he offered them a soft smile before beginning to speak:

"We know you can't just trust us and accompany us," he said. "But we would appreciate that you did because... well, I shouldn't say it, but if you come with us you will notice: Chenle can't wait to see you any longer, he's really impatient."

"And just because Chenle is impatient are we going to-?"

"It's okay." Jaemin agreed, getting up.

"Jaemin." Mark called, frowning. Jaemin gave him a long and sincere look.

"I know when people lie, Mark. Pretending is my special talent, remember?" He smiled shortly. "I can recognize when someone pretends, and they don't."

Mark sighed. The Mark of his dreams was brave and great, always in control, knowing what he wanted and doing everything possible to achieve it, and the Mark of his dreams always trusted his team completely. It wasn't that Mark of reality distrusted the dreamies at all, but he didn't feel that he was as strong as the Mark who led the rebellion in Neo, so he didn't know if the decisions he made were correct. He should try to be more like in his dreams, so he nodded and stood up too.

"I will go with Jaemin if you don't want to come." he assured calmly. Renjun snorted, standing and dragging Jeno with him, who forced Jisung to imitate the action.

"Don't be silly, hyung. We go too if you trust them."

Ah, that trust. That was the confidence he expected never to break. At that time, Mark considered himself a spectator of what he was when he was in Neo, of NCT dream, because despite knowing that he was one of the protagonists, he didn’t remember enough, so he felt more like someone who observed that someone who really was part of all that, and as a spectator could say that the most difficult thing about being a leader wasn’t having to take one for the team or organize them all, nor was it the fact of leading itself, the difficult thing was to make the best decisions seeking not to disappoint anyone and for no one to get hurt. Seeking not to betray the trust that his friends placed in him.

Likewise, he didn’t understand the logic by which he and others governed lately; were they really going to get in a vehicle with two strangers just because they mentioned Jeno's birthday, Chenle's name and because Jaemin said he trusted them? He could to some extent understand why Kun always seemed stressed in his dreams when it came to NCT dream and his suicide missions: they had a zero sense of self-preservation.

They were taken to one of the most expensive and safe neighborhoods in Seoul, where from the fence surrounding the property to the actual house, they made about five minutes in car, eventually encountering a mansion that resembled Buckingham Palace, only that it was more modern and slightly smaller. It was a huge construction.

When they got out of the car, a bunch of maids and butlers were waiting for them making two rows at the bottom of the stairs that led to the main door, making a sharp bow and welcoming them, just like in American movies. A bird was singing from somewhere in the giant garden of foreign flowers of one thousand colors, and the wind felt warm.

The teenagers smiled, not knowing exactly how to react, but then the two guys, who introduced themselves as Timothy the blond and George the redhead, were making them enter the mansion and leading them through an infinity of corridors that looked like a maze.

Inside everything was as spacious and expensive as one might expect, with original paintings and imported ceramics. Cream tones, black and white furniture. Hundreds of doors on each side of the hall. They didn’t meet a single person as they went up and down stairs and through corridors.

It reminded him of Lord Jungkook's palace, so big and confusing. Or maybe Ten's castle, but that place was enchanted and its rooms and halls changed location all the time, and for the sake of his sanity he hoped Chenle's mansion wasn't like that too.

Eventually, both men and boys crossed the longest corridor so far, and in this one there was not a single door but at the end, which they opened revealing a small room with completely white walls and that looked like a small hospital: machines that marked the pulse, tables with serums and pills, long sinks and gauze, hundreds of packages of gauze. There were other more complex devices Mark had never seen, but from Renjun's frown, he supposed they weren’t a good sign. They seemed to be personalized things, however, because they were too cute to come from a boring hospital where everything was monochromatic.

"Please wash your hands deeply and put on a mask and a hat." George asked them. The boys looked at each other and nodded, obeying the orders.

The soap smelled as absolutely nothing but it was viscous and left the skin grinding, the masks had snout figures of animals and the hats were like the ones doctors use in medical consultation, and varied in blue tones.

Once everyone was as requested, Tomothy sprayed them with a liquid that smelled like a hospital, that was a better way to describe it. It smelled like a class of cleaning that caused goosebumps, because that only could be smelled when there was disease nearby.

"Ahead." said George, while there was another door at the back of the room, his hands wrapped in gloves. The two guys didn’t enter with them, and they closed the door once the last of the teenagers entered the next room: unlike the previous one that looked like a hospital, it was normal, with warm pink walls. There was a bed in a corner and several couches around the place, plus bookshelves and a huge television with hundreds of video games on a nearby shelf. If attention wasn’t paid, anyone would think it was any room of an average rich boy.

But then they looked towards the window, which overlooked a garden that they didn’t see when they arrived, and what stood out most was, of course, the serum foot, which contained three bags, one with red liquid, another with yellowish liquid and another with transparent liquid, which were connected by thin extensions to a boy sitting in front of the window.

Chenle smiled at them enthusiastically from his place in the wheelchair. Mark remembered him with round cheeks, smiling, strong, full of life and bright eyes, vibrating from all the energy in his body, always the first to run when they made a silly race to the nearest town. But this Chenle was so thin that it seemed that the wind would take him away, his skin looked between green and gray, dry, his hair was dull and brittle, he seemed to be making an enormous effort just to keep himself seated. Not even the fluffy blanket on his legs could cover how bony his knees were, sticking out.

"Seriously, I had to search for you. What a bad job as a leader you do, Mark." Chenle laughed, and his voice was the same as he remembered, except that it sounded tired, dull, even when he smiled so genuinely.

He felt a lump in his throat, and little by little they approached Chenle.

"What? It's not like I'm going to break, you know? And what I have is not contagious." Chenle snorted when he extended his arms for a hug but everyone hesitated, afraid to hurt him. "I will think you are disgust by me if someone doesn’t hug me in the next five seconds." he warned, but a look at his chest was enough to make the boys don’t want to approach, afraid they would hurt Chenle: underneath his pajamas shirt there were a lot of bandages that reached his neck and where more cables came out, connected with some machines at the end of the room.

"Chenle-" Jaemin started, but he cut himself off when surprisingly it was Jeno who stepped forward, then another step and another and soon he was wrapping his arms gently on the youngest's shoulders, who smiled pleased, almost melting into contact.

"Good to see you." Jeno pronounced. "I'm glad you took the initiative to find us, because we had no idea where to look for you."

It was with the giggle that Chenle let out that Mark remembered a conversation they had in Neo:

'When we return, hurry to find me.' Chenle asked. 'Or you may not find me at all.'

'How sick are you on Earth?' Mark asked, mortified.

'Not even my mother dares to touch me for fear of breaking me.' he admitted sadly. 'Sometimes more than my medicines, what I need is a hug.'

'What disease do you have?'

Chenle shrugged, playing with a flower.

'To summarize, let's say that my body isn't going through a good moment, and it isn't in the best condition in general.' He looked at him with a trembling smile. 'Find me before I die, Mark.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, donghyuck and chenle are dying. in fact, everyone is fucking dying even if they don't know it shh but good news: probably next chapter we will finally know how did the dreamies end up being the rebels they were in neo ;D
> 
> anyway thanks for reading uwu ♡ how are yall doing in this fine day?
> 
> btw chenle's moodboard is ready and on my twt but idk what's happening with the links bc i can't get them to work in here? :D? so if you want to look at it and have an idea about chenle as a character, go to @jenosglow on twt and you'll find it in my pinned (writing section ofc)!!


	14. zero for conduct

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had a few months in Neo already, and all he saw was magic and pain. He saw pretty houses and broken families. Mark saw creatures that seemed to be taken out of a comic, and he also saw this: corruption, prepotency and stupidity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i... won't even mention anything about this fic's updates. good news: i had five months to improve my writing :'D
> 
> im sorry pls enjoy this chapter sakjddh this is the chapter where we get to know how it all started !!!!! this is how the revolution started !!!!!!!!!!!!

Eventually, Sicheng had to return to his kingdom. He spent an entire month helping the dreamies with their blessings and teaching them as much as he could. They made great progress, but still lacked a lot.

Sicheng didn't only teach them how to handle their blessings; He took them to libraries and bought them books, gave them all the theory about the matter at hand, spoke to them about Taeil and Neo, taught them history and culture.

The hardest blessings to control were Chenle's and Jaemin's. Chenle's because by controlling objects with his mind, if he didn't have good control over his mind, everything would fly off everywhere. And Jaemin's because there were no books or recipes that told him how to avoid taking someone else's face. As if that wasn't enough, Chenle had another blessing, the one of the mermaid, which made it possible to control others with just his voice. More than once, one of the dreamies was in a different place in the house that he did not remember going to, with Chenle practically crying near them, apologizing, telling him he didn’t mean to make him go away, he was just annoyed and yelled “go annoy to another place” and well, he did go.

Unlike the rest, Jisung had almost perfect control over his blessing from the start, since he was already familiar with plants and so on. He said that now it was just as if the trees were talking to him or something.

Renjun, for his part, was not totally out of control but his blessing was simply too complex to be brought up. He was convinced he could use his blessing to heal, even if that was against the nature of the blessing itself, which was to hurt. So he had to study more, practice more.

Mark and his blessing were something like the middle ground between Jaemin and Chenle's madness and Jisung's tight control. He electrocuted himself a couple of times, of course, but he didn't hurt anyone else.

And finally, there was Jeno. His blessing didn't get out of control, he didn't need to study and practice it over and over again. It was just there, existing within him. If Jeno didn't touch anything alive, nothing died. For a time, he walked with his hands in his pockets at all times, until one day he took some money from the vase where they kept it and announced that he would go to the village. Something very strange considering that Jeno never went there if it wasn’t almost by obligation. It didn't take more than half an hour for him to return, however, with a pair of black gloves, which he never took off except for certain specific activities like eating, but near the other boys, he always wore the gloves.

Little by little, he became part of the group, and the ties became stronger. There were no cell phones with which to be distracted, computers in which to waste time, a school to study in. Yes, there were many things to worry about, but none was like what they had on Earth: there they were sure that they would eventually return home, so if they ruined a thing or two in Neo, it wouldn't matter in the end. It wouldn't matter how much time they wasted.

They began to get along more calmly, to get to know each other better and to form a true friendship. From Monday to Wednesday everyone helped Jisung with his natural remedies that everyone in town loved, practicing a bit in their spare time and following through on their designated responsibilities. The rest of the days were to explore their blessings in depth, basically.

It was alright, and a good experience in general; they could do anything they wanted, no one to tell them to stop, and they had crazy superpowers. Yeah, the world they were in was in war and dying, but that wasn’t their problem.

“Mark, we need to buy a lot of things,” Jaemin told him one morning. He looked up to his friend, who had a list in his hands.

“Do you want me to go with you?”

“Yes, but also, I need everyone else to come. It’s really a lot of things and it could be good as a way of bonding, don’t you think so? Going to buy things, like a family.”

When they needed things only one of them went to buy them, mostly because it was a bit startling for the villagers to see a bunch of teenagers they hadn’t ever seen before going around.

The Emperor’s army had arrived to the city recently, though. That was bad; Neo in general wasn’t a country that was free, under the Emperor’s cruel command, but there were places he didn’t have totally controlled. In the village near the forest they lived in there was only the Emperor’s Guard, which was a small group of soldiers, just to keep things calm among the villagers but not enough to have things completely controlled. With the army there, Blessings would be completely forbidden, there would be a curfew, everyone would have to pay extra taxes and the soldiers could do whatever they wanted, including using violence and the force without a reason.

Donghyuck never shut up, if he didn’t like something he’d let you know, the same with Jaemin, and Chenle was too carefree, getting into trouble without even realizing. They weren’t stupid, though, so even if they encountered a group of pretontent and annoying soldiers, they would probably endure their presence enough to not get in trouble. Mark knew this, but he still worried; what if the soldiers decided they were suspicious and dragged them to their headquarters to interrogate them and discovered they had blessings? What would the rest of them do? There was no police, the only security Neo had was the army, but what do you do when the army is the one causing you troubles?

“Never go all together to the city,” Sicheng recommended to them one night. “One of you is nothing, two is little, three is some, and more than that is too many. Blessings have a special aura, a special scent. One is almost impossible to notice, but the more blessings gathered in one place, the easier it is to recognize them. Groups of Blessed people are the Emperor’s worst nightmare, so if you don’t want to get murdered, never go to the city in groups of more than three.”

Mark looked at Jaemin, doubting. They really shouldn’t. They really, really shouldn’t, but more soldiers would be arriving with each passing day, and that day there weren’t many yet. Maybe just for that once. Yeah, once should be alright.

That was how they ended up in the local market, the seven of them with baskets and giggling among themselves. Even Jeno was smiling at whatever Renjun was telling him. Mark felt like it really was a good choice, the one of them going together to buy the things they needed.

Jisung guided them through the busy streets and alleys, already knowing the village as if he had lived there all his life. It truly was a place that amazed Mark every time he went exploring it; it was all made of amethyst and diamond. Cabins, benches, even the roads were made of that.

When Mark discovered Neo was a magical world, with fairies, mermaids and vampires, he kinda expected to go to the village and find angels flying around, big and scary werewolves resting in the parks, things levitating in the stores and fairies guiding the traffic, but it wasn’t like that at all. The people were exactly like on Earth, but the village, oh, that was impressive.

First, the whole amethyst and diamond deal, that alone was impressive enough. Houses were either dark purple, clear blue or plain transparent. There weren’t cars or buses, nor animals that could carry people like horses. Everyone walked and that was it. No airplanes, of course.

There were things flying, though, but those were mostly pots with pink and blue plants, local plants, according to what a kind lady told Mark once. Every house had pots levitating outside, near the ceiling. He supposed they kept the plants flying with magic, but he didn’t understand how if the humans didn’t have any magic.

It was amazing to look at, that little village none of them knew the name of yet.

After Jisung finished handing and selling the remedies he made with his plants, they finished buying what they needed and started to go back to the forest. Mark felt relieved nothing went wrong and everyone was happy and giggly.

They were passing by the biggest park in the village when they saw a lot of people reunited there. They were observing something in a… boxing ring. Mark was sure it was a boxing ring.

“What is a boxing ring doing in the middle of the village?” Renjun wondered, confused.

Looking around, they noticed soldiers, also observing with smug smiles, laughing loudly. The villagers looked concerned, though, even a bit scared, some of them clenching their fists. That should have been the first red flag. They should have walked away from there and kept their good mood, arrive home and cook something delicious, be lazy the rest of the day, maybe bake cookies. But being honests, would they be their usual dumb teenager selves if they didn’t approach?

They weren’t that stupid, anyway, so they stayed in the crowd, not close enough to the boxing ring.

A soldier was fighting a girl, maybe a bit older than Mark, and they didn’t need to watch for more than three seconds to know it wasn’t a fair match: the man was tall, all muscles and smirks. The girl was also tall, but not as much as the soldier. She was thin and all beaten up. The man punched her in the nose, making her fall to her knees, and then he kicked her until she was laying down, her blood spilling everywhere.

“What the fuck,” Jaemin muttered.

“It’s Redemption Day,” a man told them, scowling. “The soldiers bring the Blessed people to the boxing ring and if they manage to defeat them, they are free to go.”

“They bring them from where?” Renjun asked. The man gave him an incredulous stare, as if he couldn’t believe Renjun didn’t know that information.

“From the dungeons. All the Blessed ones are locked in there.”

The girl was dragged out of the boxing ring after some more punches and kicks, barely alive.

“It’s horrible,” a woman said, tears about to drop. “Nobody even has a violent blessing, all of them have insignificant blessings.”

“That girl is blessed with a beautiful singing voice, how can that threaten the Emperor’s reign?”

It was so fucking stupid. Making normal people with weak blessings fight against trained soldiers just because they had said blessings. They weren’t a threat, they weren’t making any damage, but the Emperor still made them fight.

The whole thing was stupid, actually, and for the first time Mark allowed himself to reflect about it: in that wonderful and magical place, a power-thirsty man murdered to be the only one ruling, to have everything done his way, putting the people’s safety on the line for it to happen. If he didn’t like it, it wasn’t necessary. If he didn’t think it was fine, it should be changed. He was hurting, killing, and no one did anything. No one could do anything, too afraid, too brainwashed, with too much to lose.

People in Neo saw how their cities were destroyed, how their belongings were snatched away from them, and they let it happen, because it was that or their lives. Lives were always more important than power and money, but the Emperor didn’t think that way.

He had a few months in Neo already, and all he saw was magic and pain. He saw pretty houses and broken families. Mark saw creatures that seemed to be taken out of a comic, and he also saw _this_ : corruption, prepotency and stupidity.

Mark was young and reckless. Mark wasn’t the best at making good choices, and Mark had a heart full of good wishes. He didn’t have anything to lose. In Earth, he was another teenager more, no one who could change big things, who could do big things. Here, in Neo, Mark was still all that, but he also was, for the first time ever, fearless.

“Someone that wants to try?” the soldier in the boxing ring asked to the crowd, laughing.

“I want.” The soldier looked at Mark, raised brows and big smirk. The people around him let out a gasp, even Jaemin gasped, but he didn’t budge. “But on one condition.”

“Oh, you want to put conditions?” The soldier chuckled, shaking his head. “I don’t think you understand the situation, kid.”

“I have a blessing.” That caught the solider’s attention, and Mark smiled. “But as you can see, I’m not in the dungeons. Today is Redemption Day, though, so I can go to the ring and fight you.”

“Then come here, kid,” the man growled.

“On one condition,” Mark repeated. “If I win the army leaves the city and tells the Emperor that Mark Lee says he can go fuck himself.”

The silence was something Mark had never felt before. It wasn’t just tense and awkward, it was charged with electricity, with fear, buzzing with anticipation.

The good thing about being a bold teenager? No one took you seriously. Adults tended to brush off what you said to them, more often than not accepting without caring, sure that it was just a teenager being an idiot.

The soldier hummed, a smile making its way to his lips, “Okay then. I accept your condition.”

Mark passed his basket to Chenle. The hands of both of them were shaking and Chenle’s eyes were open wide, scared, he was pale and muttered, “Mark?”

Mark just gave him the best smile he could to the other, locking eyes with every one of his friends for a second, before saying, “I’ll be right back, guys. Jeno, don’t let them make anything dumb, I’ll be gone for just some minutes and I’m sure I can watch you from the ring, so no stupid actions, okay?”

“Stupid actions, he says as he walks to a boxing ring in the middle of a random village,” he heard Renjun whisper.

He walked to the boxing ring, and he knew he looked just as he felt: scared and tiny, but sure. 

“Is magic allowed?” he asked.

“Not only allowed but encouraged to use.”

Little blue sparks of electricity erupted from Mark’s fingers, feeling like a soft and warm buzz under his skin, almost ticklish. Mark looked at the soldier straight in the eyes.

And the revolution started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can’t stress this enough but god i know they make dumb choices, okay? reminder: they’re teenagers in a fantasy world, scared and with crazy powers, no supervision of any kind, they’re just trying to survive, so ofc they would make bad choices !!
> 
> :D thanks for reading !
> 
>  here's my twt in case you want to see me cry about writing:
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/jenosglow)


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